I made a few poor decisions today but got lucky it didn't get another group or myself hurt. I'm a little embarrassed to post this, but I figured someone could learn from my actions:
1. After setting the skin track and booter up to ridge of Barrieto, another group following our tracks started transitioning at the bottom of the rocks where we switched to booting after we told them it wasn't worth it. While waiting on them, and for some inexcusable reason, I dropped in without telling them to see if I could cut skiers right to avoid them. Despite not sending any sluffing down during the bootpack, my first turn send sluffing down a little chute straight to where one of the skiers from the other group was transitioning. While it was not a great place to transition, I had no excuse to not have waited for them to ski down, ask them to move, or ask least give them a warning that I was dropping. It was inexcusable. Luckily, it wasn't enough sluff to hurt them but it gave them a scare.
2. After making sure they were alright and apologizing, they skied down and my group started moving skiers right. Going last in my group, I hopped over a little razorback, taking a few turns before seeing a little bit of sluff coming down. Despite the forecast and what had just happened 10 minutes ago, it didn't look like much so I took another turn. Instead, it was enough to knock me off my feet, covering me fully in snow for a few seconds, and send me rag dolling off a rock and down about 300 feet. It was stupid to ignore the sluffing when I should have anticipated it, but it was just one of those where I made bad decisions. Luckily, I was a little battered after my tumble but was otherwise ok, and was able to recover the ski and pole I lost.
Lessons learned:
1. Wait for others below you, particularly if they are in an exposed location. I had every opportunity to not put them in a position to get hit by my sluff.
2. Taking sluffing more seriously. I wasn't in consequential terrain, but it still could have ended much worse.
3. Don't become complacent. I should have known sluffing was a strong possibility after sending some down on another group, but believing most of Barrieto had been skied already made me think it was relatively safe.
[Forecaster Comment: Thank you for the honest assessment of what occurred today. This is a great example of how important it is to continue to practice regular protocol when in avalanche terrain; in this case, not dropping in while others are below you. It also highlights how the weak snow at the surface continues to facet and can sluff in steep terrain. Again, thank you for the honest write up. We are grateful you and all others are ok.]
