Vail & Summit County
AvalancheAnonymous · Apr 22, 2014 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
on and off overcast in the morning with sunshine dominant after 11 am.
Snowpack
I am relaying a story told to me by the person in the slide and his partner who witnessed it. I wanted to pass it on to this site. The two skiers involved live in Frisco and were on their second lap of Quandry. For the first lap they hiked up the Cristo Couloir where they passed the a couple snowboarders also hiking up, I was one of those boarders, summited then rode down the Cristo Couloir on solid frozen corn. They then skinned up the ridge back to the top and dropped off the north side. Someone climbing up on that side called down to them said to leave an email on his Blazer and he would send pictures as he was in a perfect position to shot some shots of their descent. They had not herd from him when we spoke to them back at the trail head after their ride but did manage to leave their email. Possibly the climber took some shots of the incident with the slide.
Avalanche
about six to twelve inches snow gave way on top of the dust layer and carried the skier with it downhill for a hundred feet. His partner was below him and was able to get out of the way where he watched his buddy ride along on the slide. The caught skier was able to remain on top of the snow keeping his skis downhill with the tips up. He was not caught when the slide stopped and both rode down with no further incident however they did not like the experience. The main theme they passed on was the the slide occurred in shallow snow on top of a dust layer.