Wind slab in window
Quick reportlisalarson00 · Feb 11, 2024 · Northwest Inland
Quick report
- Weather
- cloudy, windy
- Ride Type
- denseTrees, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- alpineSlopes
- Riding Quality
- ok
- Snow Conditions
- hard, powder, windAffected
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSlab, avalancheConditionSnow
Today in Window Bowl we toured up the ridge adjacent to Window Peak. There was a hard supportive wind slab and some more recent wind slab 5 to 10 cm deep as we toured along the ridge. There was no whumpfing or cracking, even along the wind-affected ridge. We decided to stay hard skiers right to avoid large open slopes, wind slabs, and variable skiing. As we dropped in elevation through dense trees we found the snow getting a bit less wind-affected. As we approached an opening in the trees I skied into the opening and the snow was soft, my partner was higher than me and as they stepped closer to the slope it triggered a hard slab that propagated under my feet and I started to go for a ride. I was facing the mature forest so skied towards them and then the avalanche continued on below me. The crown was 50 to 60 cm deep and 5 m wide, the failure plane was the Feb 3 melt-freeze crust. Facets have started to form on this crust which made the size 1.5 avalanche run fast for about 30 meters.
Avalanche
- Run Length
- 26
- Slab Width
- 5
- Trigger Type
- skier
- Wind Exposure
- crossLoadedSlope
- Avalanche Size
- 1.5
- Slab Thickness
- 50
- Trigger Sub Type
- accidental
- Start Zone Aspect
- NE
- Vegetation Cover
- sparseTrees
- Start Zone Incline
- 35
- Avalanche Character
- windSlab
- Crust Near Weak Layer
- 1
- Number Of Avalanches
- 1
- Start Zone Elevation
- 1900
- Runout Zone Elevation
- 0
- Weak Layer Burial Date
- 2024-02-03
- Weak Layer Crystal Type
- facets
- Start Zone Elevation Band
- btl
- Avalanche Occurrence Datetime
- 2024-02-11T20:00:00.000Z
Details in quick report