Mount Field

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, windy

Ride Type

alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes, openTrees

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

hard, powder

Party of five attempted Mount Field today. We took the ‘shortcut’ but encountered a heinous and old skin track. Rock hard crust, downed trees, and unbonded snow. I would recommend taking the road all the way in and out. The amount of low density snow over the crust increased as we got to treeline and above, maybe 10-15 cm. Skinning conditions were actually quite good. We got to the headwall, started ascending, and were just 10 meters from being out of avalanche when the trail breaker hit a wind slab that collected some storm snow, creating a size one avalanche. It propagated to about 25 m wide. One person was caught and thrown of balance but did not fall over and did not get moved more than a meter or two. We decided to turn around there and had a great ski to the bottom. The amount of low density snow decreases as you descend and, although you can really feel the hard crust below, we found the ski to be pretty decent. We also noticed a size one natural as we descended that had not yet occurred when we passed on our way up. The winds were picking up as we encountered the wind slab issue.

Snowpack

Obs Type

summary

Site Aspect

N

Site Elevation

2500

Site Elevation Band

alp

Avalanche

Run Length

50

Slab Width

25

Trigger Type

skier

Wind Exposure

leeSlope

Avalanche Size

1

Slab Thickness

10

Trigger Sub Type

accidental

Start Zone Aspect

N

Vegetation Cover

openSlope

Start Zone Incline

40

Avalanche Character

stormSlab, windSlab

Number Of Avalanches

1

Start Zone Elevation

2500

Avalanche Observation

12hrsAgo

Start Zone Elevation Band

alp

Avalanche Occurrence Datetime

2024-02-10T21:00:00.000Z

We got to the headwall, started ascending, and were just 10 meters from being out of avalanche when the trail breaker hit a wind slab that collected some storm snow, creating a size one avalanche. It propagated to about 25 m wide. One person was caught and thrown of balance but did not fall over and did not get moved more than a meter or two. We decided to turn around there and had a great ski to the bottom. The amount of low density snow decreases as you descend and, although you can really feel the hard crust below, we found the ski to be pretty decent.

Incident

Group Size

5

Group Activity

skiing

Number Involved

1

Number Caught Only

1

Terrain Shape Trigger Point

convex