Aspen
AvalancheAndrew Reed · Dec 7, 2019 · Aspen
Weather
We finished skinning at approximately 11,250 FT with partly cloudy skies and approximately mid 20s. Comfortable temps with no wind. Snow was in great shape for skiing with no signs of the the wind affecting the snow.
Snowpack
We dug a pit lower down around 10,800 on a West NW aspect in treeline. Snowpack was approximately 80 CMs. Found 20CM of new snow from the recent snow storm that moved at 9 taps with the wrist but no propagation. The rest of snowpack was pretty uniform down to about 18CM where it was facets to the ground. Based on these observations it reconfirmed our plan to stay on low angle terrain all day.
Avalanche
We skinned up the low angle terrain to the edge of treeline several hundred feet below the summit. The summit area is where the terrain becomes more connected and we both agreed that it was not a good idea to summit based on known avalanche problems. We transitioned and skied one lap down the low angle terrain approximately 800FT through the trees and saw no signs of instability. We transitioned and we went up for a second lap following the same skin track. At the top of the skin track around 11,250 very close to our original transition point, we felt a large collapse and saw a shooting crack go towards the east face. At that time, a remotely triggered avalanche began on the east face and a large crown began to form across the entire east face beyond where we could see. A large avalanche ran the entire length of the east face. From our viewpoint we could not see how long the crown was. Both skiers transitioned at that point and skied down the low angle run to our second transition point. From there we found a good spot to get a better look on what slid. Based on our viewpoint the entire east face was remotely triggered and it ran down to the creek below. We could not see the end of the crown. There are other slide paths beyond on the east face that may have slid as well but we did not confirm this. Based on what we could see, our best guess was that the crown was approximately 3FT tall and was around 1500 feet long based on our measurements afterwards but we could not see the end of it. The slide also partially triggered a connected east facing bowl lower down known as "Tea Cup Bowl." It appeared to break on the well known facet layer that exists on east faces across the zone but that is just an observation from our viewpoint as no analysis was done to confirm this. We skied back our intended route following the skin track on the low angle terrain back to the car. To the best of our knowledgeable, there were no other skiers in the area and no one was on or below the slide path.