Front Range
AvalancheAnonymous · Feb 12, 2017 · Front Range
Weather
28 degrees sunny almost no wind.
Snowpack
Slab broke on buried surface hoar, between 50cm to 60cm below surface. Sugary facets were noted on top of consolidated hard crust. Slab that broke consisted of mostly 1 finger hard wind slab covered by about 3 inches of fresh snow. Slab propagated across entire chute, and went up the walls in several places on either side. Slab also propagated across apron and slightly up adjacent faces at the apron.
Avalanche
Group of 4 had skied 1 lap on the the NE face of Diamond Peak of the summit. The group then went for a second lap up the peak and continued down the ridge (south) from the summit. After some discussion they decided to perform a ski cut in the chute climbers left of the summit. Skier 1 ski cut near the roll in the chute entrance with no result. After skier 1 was in a safe zone skier 2 dropped into the chute. About 3 turns down 10 feet below the ski cut, a large slab broke above the skier. Skier 2 was able to deploy their airbag and took a ride to the bottom of the chute. Fortunately the skier was not buried or injured at all and was able to recover equipment as well. Skier 1, 3 and 4 carefully descended the line and took some snowpack observations and helped recover equipment.