Close call

Activity

Skiing

Skiing the Birdwood traverse and triggered a size 2.5 avalanche crossing over a south-facing avalanche path. Two of the three members had crossed the path and it was triggered by the 3rd at the far end of the crossing. Thankfully he was able to stay above the slide and no one was caught or thrown into the trees below. The slide propagated roughly 45 m and ran about 300m. the crown was between 30 and 80cm deep failing on facets below and was triggered at a deep point near the trees. The debris was piled frighteningly high on the trees lower in the path.

We had been paying close attention to the solar input and the wind was keeping the snow cool. The sun crust had not begun to break down in the sunny weather and we had not noticed any signs of instability or heating of the snow which made us feel confident in crossing the path. We did notice after the slide a layer of heavy wet snow just below the crust that we suspect was caused by radiant heat from the trees near the edge of the path where we triggered it. We did not find this layer of snow elsewhere throughout the day.