Observation: Public

Observation Details

Observed Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

At 8 AM my partner and I started skinning up to Herman Saddle and then to Mazama Saddle. While touring up we saw no indications of instability, interacted with new snow depths of 3-14 inches on top of the old hard crust surface, and had minimal wind. We skied down to the bottom of Mazama Bowl where we found excellent conditions. At the bottom of the bowl we chatted with a team of two who was heading to Stonemans Couloir, going the same direction we were headed for the day (we were not headed to Stonemans though), they continued on ahead of us.

At 10 AM, from Mazama Bowl we started up the western facing slope that heads up towards the peak of Mt. Herman. As we made our way up we saw increased winds and noticeable build up of loose snow, which nearly filled in the skin track of the team ahead of us. On occasion at the switch backs of the skin track we noticed cracking with minimal propagation, my partner and I both felt comfortable continuing on. As we started on the steep ascent to the saddle the team ahead of us was about to reach the saddle via boot pack when they triggered a Wind Slab about 1-2 feet deep and 25 feet wide. They quickly yelled "Avalanche" at us to get our attention, the avalanche did not propagate over to us and we watched from about 50 feet away as it slid to a stop 200 feet below. We quickly transitioned to A-frames and boot packed to the saddle, looking to minimizing our risk of triggering another slab. As we boot packed the snow was as deep as 2 feet in some places.

From the Saddle we skied down into Bagley basin. On our ski down to the basin we saw a multitude of different conditions including blower powder, wind blown crust, small sections of solid ice, and more wind loading. In the Basin we navigated through large fields of avalanche debris which are far from being snowed in and exited up out of the basin into the parking lot.