Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Ben Mater · Jan 15, 2018 · Vail & Summit County

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Weather

Calm and sunny. ~20 F.

Snowpack

Relatively thin except where windloaded on east/southeast aspects and in sheltered areas on all aspects. Deposited snow was light, dry, and ~12-18" deep on average. Some surface hoar. Great powder! Very whumphy snow pack! Heard whumphing and felt collapsing in several windloaded deposits on all aspects. One collapse of a small deposit (<30 ft wide) triggered a small pop-out ~100 feet away. Definitely near or at tipping point.

Avalanche

Avalanche was remotely triggered on our descent of the ridge line (see attached image). Slide released when first skier landed hard off of a roller about 50 feet away from the crown. Appeared to break to ground level, or very close to. Crown was 2 to 3 ft thick and approximately 100 feet long. Didn't get a good look at path from our vantage point on the ridge, but could see debris fan in valley bottom approximately 500 ft away horizontally and about 200 ft vertically. Slope was around 38 degrees. Another crack was observed across a scalloped-out area adjacent to slide. If that had released it would have more than doubled the size of the slide. Couldn't accurately classify avalanche from our vantage point. CAIC report stated moderate for all elevations.