Mt. Whymper Avalanche

bameintzer , Saturday 24th February, 2024 7:20PM

My group and I worked our way up to Whymper north bowl. On the way up the bowl we noticed a variety of snow textures from crust, to isolated loaded patches, and stale facets. Our group made the call to make it to the plateau of the bowl and make a judgement call. We opted to turn back as vis was getting pretty bad. To avoid dipping into the lowest part of the plateau we contoured around to the bottom of the east moraine. Almost immediately we noticed a change in snow sound and texture from cross loading. We made a quick adjustment but at that moment we popped a large slide above us. The slide propagated quite far around the whole east moraine above us. Out of our group, 2 were buried to their shoulders, and 2 of us managed to stay on top of the slide. No injuries in the party. Lots of lessons learned. Be safe out there!

My group and I worked our way up to Whymper north bowl. On the way up the bowl we noticed a variety of snow textures from crust, to isolated loaded patches, and stale facets. Our group made the call to make it to the plateau of the bowl and make a judgement call. We opted to turn back as vis was getting pretty bad. To avoid dipping into the lowest part of the plateau we contoured around to the bottom of the east moraine. Almost immediately we noticed a change in snow sound and texture from cross loading. We made a quick adjustment but at that moment we popped a large slide above us. The slide propagated quite far around the whole east moraine above us. Out of our group, 2 were buried to their shoulders, and 2 of us managed to stay on top of the slide. No injuries in the party. Lots of lessons learned. Be safe out there!