Front Range
AvalancheWill Wicherski · Jan 19, 2019 · Front Range
Weather
Temperature was in the high teens, partly cloudy, very strong and gusty west winds
Snowpack
~15 cm of new snow on top of more low density snow from earlier this week. Heavily windblown but not firm. 1F hardness until a 3F wind layer ~75 cm down. Upper layer failed at ECT4, lower layer failed at ECT12. We dug our pit at 10,800, which is right at tree line. There was a stark contrast between the snowpack below and above treeline, with the above treeline snowpack heavily wind affected.
Avalanche
Avalanche remotely triggered by a party of 2 skiers who traversed above the main skin track to the east. The failure zone was a heavily cross-loaded convex southeast-facing slope. We encountered a fresh debris pile partially covering the skin track below. After talking to other groups who were ahead of us on the skin track, the slide was remotely triggered just before we passed by two skiers we could still see above us on top of the convexity. They appeared oblivious to the fact that they remotely triggered an avalanche onto the skin track below. The crown looked to be ~75 cm deep, which corresponds to the firm layer observed in our test pit. There may have been a sympathetic release around the corner to the East. We estimated the slope to be 38 degrees. The avalanche occurred at approximately 10:45 am at 10,750 ft right at tree line. East Portal was extremely busy this morning and we encountered at least three other parties on the same skin track the avalanche partially covered. People were everywhere, and it was very difficult to keep track of the movements of other parties.