Quick report
3 of us approached the red lake peak area from Crater Lake. From there we made our way north west toward a sub peak off the ridge. We planned to ski the east face expecting it to be sun affected and not very good. As we toured up the shoulder and got closer to the face, we were surprised to find soft snow. On our hike we discussed how good and stable conditions had been over the last week. Between the three of us we had spent 9 days in the backcountry since the last snow fall on December 20th. We remarked how we hadn’t seen many signs of instability or avalanches over this time frame. With that convo, our guard was down and we didn’t give the 20-30 mph west wind the respect it deserved. The wind was clearly loading the east face that we planned to ski, but we thought the wind loading would be small and manageable if at all. We were very wrong. The first person on slope triggered a large slab, 2nd turn in. The slab propagated 200’ wide and was about 16” deep. The snowboarder was dragged over multiple cliff bands and was partially buried when the dust settled. The rider sustained multiple injuries and it took a couple hours to get down to crater lake. Luckily SAR was able to meet us at the lake and get our friend down the mountain on a quad and to an ambulance. Again, we were complacent with the wind loading and didn’t give the mountain the respect it deserved. Don’t let your guard down, be safe out there everyone.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2
- Type
- SS
- Aspect
- E
- Trigger
- AR
- Elevation
- 9750 ft
First hand account from reporting party - "3 of us approached the red lake peak area from Crater Lake. From there we made our way north west toward a sub peak off the ridge. We planned to ski the east face expecting it to be sun affected and not very good. As we toured up the shoulder and got closer to the face, we were surprised to find soft snow. On our hike we discussed how good and stable conditions had been over the last week. Between the three of us we had spent 9 days in the backcountry since the last snow fall on December 20th. We remarked how we hadn’t seen many signs of instability or avalanches over this time frame. With that convo, our guard was down and we didn’t give the 20-30 mph west wind the respect it deserved. The wind was clearly loading the east face that we planned to ski, but we thought the wind loading would be small and manageable if at all. We were very wrong. The first person on slope triggered a large slab, 2nd turn in. The slab propagated 200’ wide and was about 16” deep. The snowboarder was dragged over multiple cliff bands and was partially buried when the dust settled. The rider sustained multiple injuries and it took a couple hours to get down to crater lake. Luckily SAR was able to meet us at the lake and get our friend down the mountain on a quad and to an ambulance. Again, we were complacent with the wind loading and didn’t give the mountain the respect it deserved. Don’t let your guard down, be safe out there everyone."