Front Range
AvalancheKevin Luby · Jan 17, 2016 · Front Range
Weather
Cloudy with occasional windows of visibility.
Snowpack
We experienced very few signs of instability at most aspects and elevations during the ascent. We did not feel too many funky layers while pole probing. We struggled to get any activity on small windloaded terrain features.d Quick pits showed some reactivity from recent storm snow, but deeper layers were bridged by the Christmas storm snow. At tree line we did experience some settlement and wompfing on a shallow, wind affected rib that faced mostly south and southeast, as a consolidated wind board underneath the new storm snow failed.
Avalanche
At the top of Zero Creek we eyed up a chute with an obvious potential start zone with a bit of a wind pillow caused by fresh storm snow. One skier positioned themselves to make a ski cut on top of the wind pillow. The initial cut caused the pillow to fail, propagating across part of the chute and settling but not actually sliding. Continuing the cut, the whole feature failed and ran to the valley floor. The skier was able to finish the cut and move to an island of safety in much shallower snow skier's right as the slide ran it's course. Only the wind-drifted storm slab slid on a faceted and wind affected bed surface. The avalanche was approximately 150 feet wide and 30 inches deep at the deepest point of the crown. It slid approximately 800 vertical feet. The slide occurred on an east face at approximately 12,000 feet in the Zero Creek Drainage on Berthoud Pass.