Vail & Summit County

Avalanche

Aaron Carlson · Apr 11, 2019 · Vail & Summit County

Weather

Cloudy. Warm when the sun came out. Sustained winds WNW 20mph with gusts in the 40's.

Snowpack

6" of new snow below treeline. 8"-10" above TL on the SE ridge. New snow started forming slabs above treeline but more obvious, denser slabs about 12,100' in elevation.

Avalanche

We triggered two avalanches. Slide #1 As we approached the summit of Peak 1, we discussed our options to get to the ridge safely and bypass a large cornice. Our options were to move to the N and gain the ridge by traversing the N face or to head to the S and skin/boot pack between two large cornice features. We chose to head S and skin to the open area between the two cornices. The slide was triggered by skier 1 after one switchback. It caught Skier 1 and moved him downhill. The slide also pushed Skier 2 onto his stomach, head downhill, and buried most of his body up to his waist. Skier 3 was able to grab Skier 2 by the arm as he slid by and bury his body into the bed surface and not move. The debris settled at the knee height of skier 3. This avalanche was skier triggered, moved downhill apx. 35-50' and propagated out of sight of all members of the party. After avalanche #1 we decided to boot pack the bed surface and get to the summit ridge to have a look into our objective. The winds on the summit at this point were sustained 30mph with gusts of 40+mph. It was a fairly miserable experience. We moved down our N facing line on hard wind-scoured snow in hopes the wind would die down and the snow would get better as we descended the terrain.