Skier remote Citadel E face

Quick report

Went for a walk out to citadel pass and ended up ascending Citadel peak. Great travel through the meadows on semi supportive solar crust up to 2cm thick except on N aspects which held dry snow that was supportive to skinning. Solar input was cooking by 11am. A few natural rumbles, quite a bit of debris on all aspects bar North. Definitely still touchy out there so avoid avalanche terrain and really pay respect to your overhead more than usual.

Avalanche

Run Length

250

Slab Width

200

Trigger Type

skier

Wind Exposure

leeSlope

Avalanche Size

3

Slab Thickness

80

Trigger Sub Type

remote

Start Zone Aspect

E

Trigger Distance

50

Vegetation Cover

sparseTrees

Start Zone Incline

35

Avalanche Character

deepPersistentSlab, windSlab

Number Of Avalanches

1

Start Zone Elevation

2700

Runout Zone Elevation

2400

Weak Layer Burial Date

2024-02-03

Start Zone Elevation Band

tln, alp

Avalanche Occurrence Datetime

2024-03-16T16:00:00.328Z

One of the more benign whoompfs to consequence avalanches I've seen. Skinning up the SE shoulder of citadel peak just emerging from treeline on thin Rocky terrain I got a settlement in less than 40cm of snow that propagated into a more concave feature 50m to my right and it slid from 100m higher up at ridgeline. At first it didn't seem too large with perhaps 50cm crown in this isolated feature but once gaining the ridge I could see it had propagated over a number of ribs another 150m wide up to 1m deep crown. What's interesting is not all of the snow slid. The settlement travelled over thinner rib features where the snow remained unaffected. It was quite early and solar input was minimal if at all. I must admit the ease and distance of settlements this last month has been remarkable. Also with a seemingly lowish snowpack avalanches are running very fast and far at near historic ends. I thought my skin track was good but it got buried good.