Northern San Juan
AvalancheAnonymous · Dec 27, 2021 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Windy and snowy, notable wind loading occurring on specific features (mostly NW facing). Red Mountain Pass, SW, W, and NW aspects, ~11,100'.
Snowpack
Very shallow snow on the SW aspects and specific West facing spots. Noticeably deeper, wind loaded snow on NW aspects, with reactive wind slab. Red Mountain Pass, SW, W, and NW aspects, ~11,100'.
Avalanche
We were aiming to ski the SW facing glades leaving from near the yurt atop The Office, but we ended up getting pulled too far skiers right, a couple hundred feet above the cliffs. We started traversing back left through the trees, on very shallow snow, but then once the road was in sight, started to ski fall-line on the skiers right edge of the trees. The snow was notably deeper, and we could feel dense wind deposited snow. We skied spaced out, with the next skier dropping once the first skier was ~half way down. Skier #1 skied all the way to the road safely, skier #2 skied down halfway, and as I (skier #3) dropped in I could feel the slope starting to crack and collapse, so I started to traverse out towards the trees and yelled ‘avalanche.’ Skier #2 was caught, carried for ~30 or so feet, and partially buried, requiring a shovel to extract her skis and poles. I was able to get to the side of the avalanche and was only carried ~20’, and stayed on top of the snow the entire time. Looking at the photos and the map afterwards, we realized the short exit we were skiing on the right-side of the trees was northwest facing. The large crown you can see in the photos was significantly above where we were caught— we were about halfway down, below the large evergreens where you can see lots of snow piling up. We skied the slope that slid, but triggered it from below. Pretty spooky! Our group’s takeaways were: 1) watch out for small terrain features like this which was terrain we were looking to avoid. Even the smallest of differences in aspect made a HUGE difference (we were bottoming out in spots on the SW faces). 2) That navigation error in getting pulled too far right ended up being the difference maker— especially on high danger days, proper navigation is critical for staying true to your plan. 3) Space out more! There’s no reason skiers 2 and 3 (me) should have gotten caught up in the same small slide. We saw the road and got sloppy. Avoid back to the barn syndrome!