Fitz Knoll Whiteout

Quick report

Whiteout turns · Mar 21, 2022 · Spearhead

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Quick report

Weather
cloudy, foggy, warm
Ride Type
alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes
Stayed Away
convexSlopes, steepSlopes
Snow Conditions
heavy, powder, windAffected
Avalanche Conditions
avalancheConditionSlab, avalancheConditionTemp

Incident

Comment
<p>Despite the forecasted poor visibility we decided to head out over whirlwind col, across overload glacier to ski Fitz Knoll. We had anticipated that the clouds would say high and we would have some visibility as we descended. Unfortunately, this was not the case and we ended up on steeper terrain which we had initially planned to avoid. Warming throughout the day led to the consolidation of the wind slab. The first skier down the bowl got about three turns in before setting off a size 2 avalanche. The Crown wall was about 15-20cm deep, and the avalanche propagated several 100ms around the entirety of the bowl. Hard to say the exact extent of it due to low/no visibility. Skiier was not caught and was able to ski the avy debris down. Sorry, no photo due to no visibility. Very touchy out there yesterday afternoon. </p>