Avalanche: Pink Pine

Myself and 1 other toured Pink Pine ~7am on Thursday 12-16-21. Weather conditions: roughly 20F and lightly falling snow but no accumulation yet since yesterdays storm. There had been no touring activity the prior day from White Pine trailhead

We noticed frequent collapses / woompfing with some propagation of cracks on the faceted layer beneath the ~16 inches of storm snow during the ascent to Pink Pine Ridge. We did not observe any natural avalanches in the surrounding area, though cloud cover obscured viewing across LCC or into the White Pine drainage. There is no wind crust at this elevation, though the depth of soft snow on leeward aspects (~6 inches deeper storm snow on the east facing aspect) suggests that there has been some snow transport. The storm snow is densest at the bottom and lighter on top.

We skinned to the upper / skiers-right end of the pink pine meadow and traversed to the edge of the more densely treed area. On the first turn of the first skier, the storm snow (with an additional estimated 6 inches of wind transport) fractured roughly 2 feet deep on the faceted layer of the snowpack that has persisted since October. This fracture propagated back into the meadow (est ~125 feet), noted roughly by the red line in the first image. The slope angle is generally slightly above 30 degrees in this area, but closer to 35 degrees right at the crown line. The avalanche ran midway to the first bench on Pink Pine Meadow. No one was caught or buried.

The snowpack propagated widely, and in hindsight we should have stayed further from the area in Pink Pine that is most prone to be a trigger point (or, avoided the aspect altogether). Conservative terrain choices on the aspects that held snow through the fall are warranted, even on lower angle slopes (and especially with more precipitation expected in the 24h).