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Size 4? Sweet Sixteen

Published
Mar 27th, 2026 7:00 PM
@Life In a Tin Can
Spray - KLakes
Details

Type

quick

Coordinates

50.738500, -115.270490

Quick Observation
Went into the Murray basin to the base of Sweet 16. I’ve skied this area for almost 15 years and have seen the results of some big events there in the past with van-sized blocks, but this one.... well, it ran right across the valley to the north side where it took out some of the mature forest and made a good attempt at going UP the north slopes of Murray (but didn’t get far due to the solid tree wall). I didn’t take any measurements, but the tallest points of debris looked to be at least 3x my height, so 5+ meters. I don’t know if it was actually Sweet 16 that went because I couldn’t see around the corner - the debris field covers most of the open basin and climbing up and navigating that debris field to get a look would have been very time consuming. I did see a huge crown line on the east-facing upper slopes of Smith Dorrien that for sure contributed. Those lower, open, east-facing slopes of the Murray basin had not slid. Further east in the valley, along the north-facing open slopes that folks ski... 95% of this area has also slid. Start zones looked to be around 250m from the valley bottom at the base of the cliffs. Picked a way up through the debris and skied the 5% that had not slid, and it was actually great snow, maybe 30cm fresh, but good lines were hard to come by. Extreme care was needed because in the 95% of the area that had slid there was around 15cm of powder over hard avy debris with a mine-field of scattered, buried bowling balls that would be ankle breakers. Sorry, no photos.
Avalanche Information