Remote trigger 1.5 on crowfoot roadside chute #3

Quick report

Weather

stormy

Ride Type

openTrees, denseTrees, mellowSlopes, steepSlopes

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSnow, avalancheConditionSlab, avalancheConditionSound

We decided to park at crowfoot glacier viewpoint and skin down to crowfoot glades as we didn’t want to park too much into the roadway with accumulated snow. Started the day breaking trail and doing a lap down the glades. After moving to the ridge and checking out the chutes from above. We decided on roadside chute #3 as it’s fairly wide, has safe areas and is the most tree’d of the cutes to provide anchors. We initially skinned down into the chute a short distance to check snow then decided to skin back up an extra 20-30M change over and start from there. We planned to single ski the chute as a party of 2 stopping in safe areas and keeping eyes on one another. First skier entered the bowl feature of the chute and skied to a safe zone allowing second skier to join area. As second skier approached safe area a remote release started from the convex feature with no cracks until approx 50M skiers right of tracks propagating to a accumulation of snow on a tree stump further propagating along the steep tree cliff band area with a varying crown depth from <10cm up to 60cm in areas. Approximate crown width was 150M releasing a 1.5 size slide. Running on the buried Feb 3 rain crust down the chute. We then went to thick trees and skinned out of the chute. All trees remained standing. We decided to return to the glades and attempted to skin to the base of the chute but snow fall and visibility did not allow us to see up the chute. Both walked away no injuries. No involvement.

Weather

Wind Speed

windSpeedCalm

Temperature Trend

steady

Precipitation Type

snow

Avalanche

Slab Width

150

Trigger Type

skier

Avalanche Size

1.5

Slab Thickness

45

Trigger Sub Type

accidental

Trigger Distance

50

Avalanche Character

stormSlab

Number Of Avalanches

1

Avalanche Occurrence Datetime

2024-03-01T07:30:00.236Z

Incident

Terrain Trap

gullyDepression

Group Activity

skiing

Snow Depth Trigger Point

variable

Terrain Shape Trigger Point

convex