Cass’s gully, Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont

Quick report

Cracking

isolated

Collapsing

isolated

Shooting cracks, loud settling, open slope without any real anchors Snowing hard all day, this went at about 3:30 pm I have been riding all around this area through this entire cycle. I hadn’t seen any real negative signs until this moment. Was a good reminder to be aware of changing conditions brought on by high precipitation rates We took a cautious route around through the trees. Our track up to was still intact after the slide. My overall impression is that things changed today in a negative way on certain aspects. Wide open slopes should be avoided and the North and east aspects are wind loaded. This was an avalanche that had tremendous energy and would have dragged us through a field of rocks and broken trees. Not trying to glorify this at all. In retrospect I would have avoided this areas all together.

Avalanche

Rode down on West aspect into notch. Slide path we rode has already slid. Went up east aspect through the trees to access the rock slide under Cass’s gully (east facing). Didn’t see any signs of instability until we were right on the edge of the open slope. Started to see shooting cracks and there was a noticeable loud whoomph. We decided to put our gear on and I was going to ski cut it and or bail altogether when it all let loose from way above us. Luckily because of what we were seeing we had wedged ourselves into a relative safe spot under the cliff where nothing could come down on us from above to switch over into downhill gear.