A Real Doozy of a Natural

Avalanche date/time

Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 23:03

Estimated occurrence time of avalanche

From 24 to 48 hours ago

Number of avalanches in this report

1

The size of avalanche

4

Slab thickness

150cm

Slab width

1,500m

Run length

500m

Avalanche Character

• Deep persistent slab
• Persistent slab

Trigger type

Natural

Start zone aspect

• N

Start zone elevation band

• Alpine

Start zone elevation

2,500m

Start zone incline

35°

Runout zone elevation

2,000m

Weak layer crystal type

• Depth hoar

Wind exposure

Lee slope

Vegetation cover

Open slope

Spotted an absolute hog of a natural south of Golden today. Looks like two events - the first slightly older event was cataclysmic and brought down around 1.5km of snow with a second more recent event (a size 3 on its own) occurring either in hang fire or reloading. Does it have the path length to be truly a size 4? Debatable... A kilometre and a half of 'lanche running to ground might beg to differ though. I'll leave that nuance up to someone with a calculator and more time on their hands. An important note is that a significant portion of the snow that moved here was in lower angle terrain in fans under the head walls. Heads up for any couloir hunters out there looking for smaller start zones - there may be some demons in the runouts.

Truly a hog the likes of which has not been seen since Robert Baratheon met his unfortunate end. And to honour it- a poem:

Went for a schnoodle in [redacted] with an Australian,

But it seems that the avalanches think they're Himalayan.

It was tempting to turn, tuck tail and run,

But we stuck to broken up low angle slopes and had fun.

We wanted to get rad but without overhead exposure,

We played it safe so now I can go frolf with my dog Rover.