Quartz Hill Avalanche

Avalanche date/time

Wednesday, January 14, 2026 at 17:50

Estimated occurrence time of avalanche

Less than 12 hours ago

Number of avalanches in this report

1

The size of avalanche

1

Avalanche Character

• Persistent slab

Trigger type

Skier

Trigger subtype

Intentional

Start zone aspect

• NE

Start zone elevation band

• Treeline

Start zone elevation

2,300m

Runout zone elevation

2,300m

Weak layer burial date

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Weak layer crystal type

• Surface hoar

Crust near weak layer

No

Wind exposure

Lee slope

Vegetation cover

Sparse trees or gladed slope

Attempted to ski cut this convex roll, but did not see any results or shooting cracks. Upon skiing the convex roll, it avalanched a Size 1 Persistent Slab and propagated 20-25m with a 80-100cm crown line, ran about 5 metres before the slope angle prevented it from going further.

Sunny, blue bird day with moderate winds in the morning increasing to strong towards noon, suspected culprit was the January 3rd SH layer, upon inspecting the bed surface, we found 3mm sized surface hoar.

Top 10-20cm was F hard DF, 20-80cm was 4F with the last 20cm above the Bed Surface 1F hardness

SH was also noted on the surface 1-2mm in size.