MacD West Shoulder Wet Loose
Quick reportclaudibot27 · Dec 30, 2023 · Glacier
Quick report
- Weather
- sunny, warm, wet
- Ride Type
- alpineSlopes, denseTrees, mellowSlopes, sunnySlopes
- Stayed Away
- convexSlopes, openTrees
- Riding Quality
- ok
- Snow Conditions
- crusty, heavy, powder, wet
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionTemp
Skinned up NRC and over to Vent Shaft Slope (NOTE: pin on the map indicates location of avalanches observed). It was cold, windy and foggy in the NRC parking lot in the morning. We ascended out of the cloud layer at approx. 1600m in elevation and encountered nil to light winds for the remainder of the day. At our treeline transition point we had an air temperature of +4. The skiing was as expected - mashed potatoes on sun-exposed slopes, dodging tree bombs, and pockets of powder in sheltered areas.
Avalanche
- Run Length
- 350
- Slab Width
- 10
- Trigger Type
- natural
- Avalanche Size
- 1.5
- Start Zone Aspect
- S
- Vegetation Cover
- openSlope
- Start Zone Incline
- 45
- Avalanche Character
- looseWet, wetSlab
- Number Of Avalanches
- 6-10
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2450
- Runout Zone Elevation
- 2100
- Avalanche Observation
- 12hrsAgo
- Start Zone Elevation Band
- alp
- Avalanche Occurrence Datetime
- 2023-12-30T21:00:00.000Z
From Vent Shaft Slope, we observed numerous wet loose point release avalanches pouring off of the South face of MacDonald West Shoulder and into NRC Gully. They appeared to be naturally triggered by strong solar input with today's inversion. One slide looked like a wet slab approx. 10m in width, although difficult to guesstimate slab thickness from a distance. Upon closer inspection we also spotted quite the daring skintrack leading across the entire face of MacDonald West Shoulder, although we didn't witness anyone on it. From our vantage point this looked terribly rocky and exposed.