Keith's Hut winter route avalanche.

<p>Strong south winds loading a cornice formed along the anniversary glacier moraine caused the cornice to fail, triggering a class 2 avalanche the covered at least 200 meters of the usual winter approach to Keith's Hut as we were skiing this route at 2 pm Saturday afternoon. One member of our party of three was fully buried, one was buried to his waist, and the third through swimming was able to stay at or near the surface. The two people not buried quickly rescued the buried person who had managed to clear an air hole to the surface so was visible without need for transceiver search (which the party had). There were no other people in the immediate area so it was very fortunate that all three people were not fully buried. The avalanche hazard was high above treeline and considerable below treeline overall which the party was well aware of. The local site conditons where the avalanche occurred, however, where the 60 cm of new snow which had fallen in the previous 15 hours and strong south winds coupled with the orientation of the moraine led to the 50-100 m long fracture approx 60-75 cm thick onto the 60 cm of fresh snow on the 30-35 degree slope above. Learnings are to either stay home in these kind of conditions or if using this route stay at least 25 m further right and ski in the trees, not in the open area at the slope base. There our other more forested and safer routes into the hut which are more strenuous. We feel very lucky to be alive and uninjured and our hope is that others will factor in this incident when assessing the potential risk and route placement when skiing to Keith's Hut. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Steep slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder.

Weather Conditions

Stormy, Windy, Cloudy.