Quick report
We skied the Banana couloir today with an early start, approaching from the south. While there was a crust on most surfaces above 4000 ft in the morning, things quickly softened up with the strong sun and warming temperatures. Skiing conditions were pretty variable, with plenty of breakable crust, a little bit of dry powder on sheltered aspects, plenty of wind affect, and lots of wet slopes by midday. By 11:30 or so we started making our way out, noting a substantial amount of new point releases and slides coming down into Pelton basin from the cliffs below mix-up arm.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6200 ft
We observed this naturally released slab avalanche, which was triggered by a small piece of cornice fall on the skiers left hand side of the Yawning glacier just below the Banana Couloir. The start zone had been in the Sun since early in the morning, and the crown was at least 100 ft wide and the avalanche ran approximately 6 to 800 vertical feet, funneling through the cliffs below the Banana Couloir.