Northern San Juan
AvalancheAnonymous · Jan 22, 2019 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Snowing and blowing. Weather was mild immediately in the morning with an approaching storm. Winds picked up significantly early in the tour blowing primarily out of the west/southwest.
Snowpack
Evidence of a recent (3-4 days old) powerful natural avalanche cycle was widespread.
Avalanche
Two skiers approached the west side of Battleship crossing the middle fork of Mineral Creek from Ophir Pass Road. We skinned up new avalanche debris that had come from the first major path on the west side of Battleship, presumably part of the natural avalanche cycle a few days prior. They chose this aspect because the forecasted winds would be out of the west and loading east aspects. Halfway up the slope skinning up 25 degree hard avalanche debris they were struck by what appears to have been a natural avalanche and were caught and carried approximately 600-700 feet. Skier 1 was buried to her waist. Skier 2 was totally buried face down, head downhill. Skier 1 dug herself out, switched her beacon to search and immediately found a signal and pinpointed Skier 2 approximately 50 feet below. She dug quickly removing about a meter of soft storm snow before revealing Skier 2. Skier 2 was unconscious and not breathing but had a pulse. Skier 1 stimulated breathing and continued to dig out Skier 2. Skier 2 began spontaneous breaths slowly coming around until he could stand up. Skier 1 retrieved her equipment and she and Skier 2 self rescued. Miraculously, no injuries were sustained by either skier Of note was the sudden shift in wind direction about halfway up their skin track. They had stopped to survey the slope and quickly discuss cutting their tour short due to conditions. The plan was to continue a few hundred feet to the bottom of a large tree island to plan their descent. At that time Skier 2 noticed that winds had shifted and were blowing directly downhill from east to west. Having skied the terrain several times in the past month and presuming that the overhead hazard of the open slopes towards the ridge above had already slid naturally in the last cycle there was less concern for danger from above. Furthermore, the fact that they were on hard avalanche debris meant that they would probably not remote trigger terrain adjacent. Finally, Skier 2 had hunted extensively in this basin over the past several autumn seasons and was intimate with slope angles and terrain despite the obscured weather conditions. It appears that the slope that slid and struck the skiers had a southwest aspect and the start zone was TL. The new debris from this avalanche ran over 300 meters before hitting the skiers and then continued another 500 meters to the bottom of the drainage.