Quick report
Observed human triggered wet loose, and wet slab avalanches. See summary above.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 60
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Beautiful. Occasional clouds, but largely very sunny.
Snowpack
Spring corn at the top yielding to mash potatoes ant mid and slush at the lower elevations.
Avalanche
Was on the summit w/another group of 4 splitboarders on May 13th. Myself and my partner descended along our ascending route (Worm Flow) 10 minutes or so before the others, while they were still switching over to downhill mode. My partner and I stopped and watched from 6500ft as the group rode down a line just west of the worm flow ascent route. The group of 4 stopped above a large open southerly aspect face about 300 yards away from where we were observing from. The first rider dropped onto the face and immediately started causing a small wet loose avalanche. It appeared the rider was trying to hold an edge and allow the small slide to get ahead of him when a crown of approximately 200 yards wide and 3-4 ft deep at its deepest, broke loose, and resulted in the entire slope breaking away. We watched as the rider was carried down approximately 1/4 mile before he was lost from sight behind a feature of the terrain. We saw the debris field continue past the terrain feature w/no sign of the rider. As a second rider dropped in behind the first on the now scoured face, we contacted 911 and began moving towards the debris field to aid in the search. Nearing the debris field, the remaining 2 riders dropped in on a less steep angle ridge and came over to us, letting us know that they had radio comms w/the first rider, and that he was buried up to his waist, but was otherwise in good condition, of which we relayed to the dispatch who was still on the line taking information. This occurred around 1430hrs, after the sun had been baking the mountain for several hours. The most concerning aspect of this was the decision the group shared with us to leave their beacons in their vehicles at the trailhead.