Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Localized cracking around skis and shooting cracks on wind-loaded terrain. Heavy wind loading occurring predominantly on NW-N-NE slopes. Light precipitation throughout the day with moderate to high winds along ridge lines. Terrain below tree line was generally well protected from the wind and held the best skiing/riding conditions.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- W
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 8560 ft
Our group was traveling in the Castle Peak zone today and unintentionally triggered a wind slab avalanche in the glades on the west face of Castle Peak. Throughout our ascent, we noted that the new snow was forming a slab on top of the old, crusted snow surface and found a lack of bonding at the old snow/new snow interface through hand shear tests along our route. Because of the poor bonding, we opted to avoid the steeper terrain on the north and south faces of Castle Peak and instead chose to ski the west facing glades. As we ascended the ridge, we observed significant wind loading onto the west face of castle peak and found reactive windslabs as we skinned along the ridge line. Despite these signs, we transitioned just below the ridge right above a steep convex rollover amidst an otherwise benign slope. I naturally (but unintentionally) performed a ski cut as I began my descent and was surprised to trigger a soft wind slab avalanche that ran approximately 50 vertical feet and ~100 feet wide with a crown height of ~18 inches. This slab failed at the old snow/new snow interface at with a start zone of approximately 35 degrees.