Front Range
AvalancheScott Shepherd · Dec 26, 2021 · Front Range
Weather
About 20F and blowing wind. Overcast but not actively snowing.
Snowpack
Lots of fresh snow on a very thin bottom layer. Avalanche danger was High.
Avalanche
Intending to only ski the normal front face of the west side of berthoud pass due to the high avalanche danger. One skier, one snowboarder boot packing, and one dog. Skinned/walked up the normal ascent path to the radio antenna. Began skiing/snowboarding down intending to hit the slope directly above the west side parking lot, which could clearly be seen with many tracks on it already. Instead, ended up too far skiers left to the unmarked slope over Rush Chute. Knowing the avalanche danger, we did not want to ski that. However, my dog went past where I stopped once I realized my mistake. I called for him to stop, which he did, but instead of making him come back up to me and traversing over to where we wanted to be, I began to traverse and let my dog traverse a little ways down the slope. That is when he triggered the avalanche. It was very quiet and sudden, no cracking or whoomping or any other warning signs before hand. My dog was quickly buried and was swept over the edge of the rocks. The avalanche broke all the way to the very shallow snow pack of only a couple inches. I skied down to the chute, then it was too rocky to continue so downclimbed without skis down the chute. The snowboarder stayed up top to look for any signs. Once down the chute it was apparent the avalanche broke very widely. There were three skiers at the bottom trail who saw the avalanche and asked to assist. I said it was only my dog caught, but we swtiched all our beacons to search mode just in case someone else was caught we didn't see. With only four people and such a wide area I did my best to cover ground up above while the three began searching below. Everyone had full avalanche gear, but of course the dog did not have a beacon on. No other signals were found, and after 15-20 minutes of searching, one of the three found my dog near the very bottom of the avalanche path. I was still fairly high up it. Miraculously my dog is OK, thanks in huge part to the three passer-by who helped. My partner above warned other skiers he saw about the avalanche, and everyone was ready and willing to help if need be.