Avalanche: Guardsman Pass area

Overview of the slide. Large debris pile ending in a boulder field. This ride was lucky to have escaped this slide unharmed. Earlier in the day we were checking out a slide just on the other side of the ridge that had occurred 24 hours prior, same aspect, elevation and wind loading pattern. Nearly 7 days after our last significant load of snow and people are still triggering deep avalanches that are breaking into old snow layers near the ground.

You can see the riders track onto the slope here. This is where he triggered the avalanche.

Crown was 1' to 6' deep. Obvious "step down" avalanche. Meaning that the avalanche initially failed on one weak layers and as the weight of that snow began to move down the slope it triggered a secondary avalanche deeper in the snowpack.