Observation: Public

Observation Details

Triggered Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Details of accident
Skied a small slope (~30 feet wide, ~200 feet length) off of the ridge. Slope was steep enough to slide and prone to wind loading off the ridge, although there were no signs of wind loading. The slope was not convex, or particularly steep, and looked safe enough to ski given the conditions. First skier dropped and skied to a safe zone with no signs of instability, besides sluff. Second skier dropped and skied a little more in the gut of the slope, triggering a soft slab on their 2nd turn. Skier was able to ski off to the right and out of the sliding snow, but dislocated their shoulder in the process. The slab broke above the skier by about 10-15 feet, and looked like a storm slab that slid on a graupel layer. We were able to get the shoulder back in and ski safely out.

Signs of instability:
We did not do any digging, but did some active testing on the way up. We observed small shooting cracks as well as a small slab fracture when jumping above the skin track on a kick turn. We were observing instability on the most recent snowfall, but not anything below 1 ft. We were ready to see storm slab out there, but were caught off guard by how deep and large the avalanche slid!

Sorry for lack of photos.

Hot take on the skin track:
The main skin track went straight below/through a big open slope below a cliff that could have been easily avoided by traversing just a couple hundred feet lower. Later, it cut straight through a medium sized open slope on avalanche terrain with some convexity. This was done to avoid the alternative route of extra traversing before touring a much safer up track. After our incident we realized that there could have been a much larger avalanche triggered on this part of the skin track. No need to put ourselves in so much unnecessary exposure! Especially when moving slow up the hill.