Mendenhall Towers-North side
Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Got out heli skiing for the short weather window. Lots (meters) of new snow with the cooler storms over the past few weeks. North aspects held great pow with little wind affect, other aspects were more sun affected. Flat glacier/lower elevations had a pretty stout breakable crust. A hasty pit in the Split Thumb zone yielded an ECTP26 down 50cm on a NW aspect. We were short on time, so we stuck to chill pow runs to maximize the very fun skiing.
Avalanche
- Size
- D4.5
- Aspect
- N
- Elevation
- 6500 ft
Very large avalanche on the North side of the Mendenhall towers in the Hatchett Line zone. Slide characteristics are very approximate estimations; our group did not investigate the slide or nearby snowpack beyond taking photos and ogling at the size. Best guess at crown depth is average 150cm, max 3m. This slide looked to be about a full seasons-worth of snow. Other avalanches (recent and old) were observed in the Split Thumb zone earlier in the day on other aspects, but none were nearly this large. Pretty damn impressive.