Oakes Gulf- Main Gully

This is a quick summary of a skier triggered avalanche in Oakes Gulf Main Gully yesterday.

Key takeaways

• this wind slab will be easily identifiable by rounded, white snow
• you may not have warning signs like shooting cracks or wading through knee deep snow
• This was a firm and stubborn wind slab
• consider terrain carefully, look out for convex terrain features and consider the consequence if you were to trigger something. A small avalanche in a narrow gully could create a deeper debris pile.

A group triggered an avalanche in Oakes Gulf yesterday. This is a short summary of their initial account:

They skied the Lakes Hut entrance slope on their first run.

After that, they skied Main Gully and found stiff wind slab that was described as barely even edgeable “a steel slab that is almost impossible to trigger”.

While the crown looks dramatic, the debris deposition was shallow and the majority of the slab was thin. 

They had concerns of the convex rollover and planned to manage this by staying far skier’s left to the slightly less steep portion of the convexity. The slope broke above the skier after they passed the convexity. The avalanche debris was noted to not move quickly which made cutting out of it easy.

The skiers speculated the size was R1 D1.5