Surprisingly large avalanches

Avalanche date/time

Monday, January 3, 2022 at 09:00

Estimated occurrence time of avalanche

Less than 12 hours ago

Number of avalanches in this report

6 to 10

The size of avalanche

2

Slab thickness

80cm

Slab width

200m

Run length

50m

Avalanche Character

• Storm slab

Trigger type

Natural

Crust near weak layer

Yes

Vegetation cover

Sparse trees or gladed slope

We saw surprisingly large avalanches on the cliffs just South of Dinkey Peak. There were several crowns up to 80cm high, and one avalanche wrapped all the way around the main strep face, propagating ~200m - much more than I'd expect with a pure storm slab problem. Most of the avalanches went down to a very solid crust which was supportive enough to stand on on foot. I took a look to see if I could find facets near the crust but heavy snow (and ~1cm of snow already fallen on top of the crust) made it difficult to tell. I've been away from the coast for two weeks so I'm not sure if this crust was the surface snow from before the storm or if it was buried previously.

We stomped on some smaller steep features and saw some cracking but no movement. Buy it seemed most bigger terrain in the area had already slid naturally. We steered clear of any avalanche terrain big enough to cause problems.