Sawatch

Avalanche

Anonymous · Feb 18, 2019 · Sawatch

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Weather

Cold (mid teens), partly cloudy, slight inconsistent breeze

Snowpack

We were mostly on E and SE aspects when traveling up and down. The SE aspect was occasionally non-supportable when skinning up (we would break through the last two storm layers - Thursday and Saturday). We exprereinced two occasions of settling (felt and heard) on our skin up on the SE aspect (approx. 11,500 to 11,700). This portion of the skin up was about 23-25 degrees in steepness. We experienced no non-supportable snow or settling on our descents.

Avalanche

We made two similar E-SE aspect descents from just below tree line (less than 100 feet below tree line). Our angle was mid to high 20's degrees of steepness. We skied a E-SE slope whose more S aspect rolled more steeply towards the drainage of the slide (which we avoided). Our runs were almost parallel to, but out of, the drainage/avalanche path. On our 2nd run we felt and heard a settling at the top of our run. We waited and listened for a few seconds, but heard nothing else and started to ski down. About 20-30 seconds later we observed snow and debris sliding in the drainage below us to the S. We could not see where the avalanche had started until we were further down the slope. We estimate that the SE slide took place about 250-300 meters to the SE and above of our point of descent of both runs. The SE slide started and stayed in the drainage/avalanche path, which was parallel to our descent (about 200-300 meters away from our line of descent). The NE aspect of the drainage slid as well. We cannot say that we remotely triggered these slides given that we did not see them start. If we did, we would guess that the SE slide went first, remotely triggered by us, which then triggered the NE slide. We heard a sound that we thought was an airplane passing overhead, only to then see a snow cloud and debris passing in the drainage to our right. The slide traveled approx. 1,000 feet down in elevation in the drainage. Sorry, we had no way to take any good photos.