Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 30 m
- Slab Thickness
- 41 cm
- Start Zone Aspect
- North
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2896 m
We saw the cloud of this avalanche and went over to view it immediately from a safe spot. One of our party did a quick beacon search because there is a skin track to the lookers left of the avalanche, and ski/snowboard tracks exiting another chute on this slope, but found nothing. We didn't trust the unreleased snow above the debris, so did not search further. We did not see or hear anyone at the top of the slope either, so we moved on.
Our best guess was a natural cornice fail with the new load and some daytime warming, which then released the storm slab on the graupel layer. I checked the snowpack nearby and found about 16" of new snow on top of a very thin crust on top of well preserved graupel. The graupel likely pooled under these cliffs as well, making it even more reactive here.
[Forecaster Comment: Seeing an avalanche and then performing a beacon check is a great example of looking out for one another in the backcountry. Thank you!]