Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 35°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 9 m
- Weak Layer
- Wet grains
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Vertical Fall
- 91 m
- Avalanche Type
- Wet Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 15 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Intentionally Triggered
- Avalanche Problem
- Wet Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 3200 m
Headed up Red Pine with the intention of going to summit the Pifferhorn. 2 miles of hiking and rapid warming made us turn back just below the alpine ridge. We were going to drop down into the bowl just SE of the spur ridge that leads up to the alpine ridge. I skied around and across the top the bowl. The wet slab broke about 3 feet in front of me and picked up more snow as it went down. The slide started at a convexity where the upper slope meets the top of the bowl. The slide was rather slow. There was about 1-2 feet of debris at the bottom. There were a lot of 1-2 day old roller balls in the area, and some larger slides on the slope south of Upper Red Pine Lake.
I am also posting a shot of a much larger avalanche on the South slope of the main wall above Upper Red Pine Lake (just SE of White Baldy). We did not see this happen, but suspect it occurred sometime this week with the rapid heating. It appeared to break all the way down to the ground near the top. It looks like either rock fall initiated, or point release.