Avalanche Bowl

Toured out towards Elly and Avalanche bowl. On the way out I ran into a party of two friends who told me that they had remotely triggered an avalanche in the Wolf Trap (a steep NE-SE facing feature at 8,900’). The party had just finished skiing the skiers left side of Avalanche Bowl and were transitioning to go back up for another lap when they experienced a large collapse and then witnessed the avalanche in the Wolf Trap. Interestingly, the two had been stopped for several minutes while transitioning and didn’t trigger the avalanche until one member put their skis back on to reascend the slope.

I decided to follow their route to take photos of the slide and dig nearby. Accessing the crown was not reasonable today so I dug a pit about 30 feet above the crown. About 27” (70cm) of recent snow has formed a soft slab (4F-) above facets that developed in early December and November. The avalanche likely failed at this interface as I estimated the crown to be about 24-30” in most places. The avalanche was about 50 feet wide and ran around 200’ vertical feet.

This avalanche was remotely triggered, in an unexpected manner, with few signs of instability present. It highlights how we are transitioning from a storm slab to a persistent slab problem. I would expect avalanche behavior in steep, shaded/sheltered terrain to be more similar to this event as we move forward.

No propagation in pit despite multiple ECTs. The large collapse felt by the reporting party may have contributed to this, or it could have been something else entirely. Either way, it was a good reminder that stability tests aren’t a silver bullet when it comes to hazard assessment.

The snowpack at the middle elevations has settled noticeably in the past day or so given the warmer conditions. Both boot and ski penetration were significantly less than the previous days. There was 6” of settlement observed today at 8,000’ at JHMR.

The facets in the bottom third of the snowpack where I dug are about 1mm in size and not very well developed.