Observation: Public

Location:

Mount Baker NRA (Pocket Lake)

Comments:

I was riding snowmobile at Pocket Lake at Mt Baker NRA when another rider from another group rode up a NE aspects slope that was pretty steep. He initially caused a small wet slide on his first run. On his second run he hit an even steeper slope and the sled came over backwards on top of the rider and the rider was being pushed down hill in front of the sled as a wet loose slide pushed him and his sled down towards some trees. The rider was able to push themselves away from the sled and narrowly missed the trees with his body and ended up sliding a total of about 300' down the slope and stopped in the toe of the slide and was partially buried and was able to self extract. The snowmobile was pushed against the trees and more heavy wet snow pushed the sled against a tree that had a 1' diameter trunk at the snow level. The wet heavy snow buried his sled and ultimately damaged the sled badly to the point it lost its coolant and severally dented the frame. The sled was ridden out with the damage by adding water to the cooling system

Did you observe any avalanches? 

Yes

Comments:

We saw widespread activity that was mostly from previous days. As the sun warmed the snow in the afternoon many small D1 slides were triggered by interacting with the snow on sleds.