Observation: Public

Observation Details

Triggered Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We left Yodelin parking lot at 10:30am. Snow was soft and melting in the valley by that time. We observed roller balls and several D1 from the previous day on the ascent of the SW face. There were no fresh roller balls on the ascent. Partially cloudy sky provided some protection, but it was quite hot when the sun came out.After gaining the north summit, we rode down to Lake Lichtenwasser, north aspect snow was dry enough and skied decently.

We had lunch at the lake and skinned back up to the south summit of Lichtenberg by 3pm. From there, we descended the S-SE face, skiing around loose wet debris from the prior day. Around 4800 feet we kicked off a D1 and D2 size wet loose avalanche. The first started when a mini fridge sized roller ball from a skier's sluff dropped over a rock band and impacted the snow below. The 2nd was started by a skier traversing across a face. The avalanche released below his path. The melting fresh snow from the latest storm slid easily and entrained more snow as it got moving.
We kicked off a third D1 lower down around 4000ft on rocky, convex terrain feature.

No one was caught in any of these avalanches because we spaced out, weren't skiing on top of each other, and had a bit of luck on our side. We were in this terrain because the clouds and a light snow came in around 2pm and gave us a false sense of confidence that loose wet avalanches wouldn't be an issue today even though temps were above freezing. We could have put more weight on the roller balls and D1 loose wet avalanches from the previous day.