Avalanche: Raymond Peak

Shannon Bailey

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Raymond Peak

Mount Raymond

9,800'

East

Skier

Wet Loose

Wet Snow

6"

40'

Party of 5 out for a leisurely hike to ski adventure. Transitioned from our shoes to our skins around Baker pass due to lack of snow below. We took our time on the ascent because of the lack of perceived danger. Old smaller slides were noted on the E face of Raymond on our ascent. There was one other solo skier ahead of us who skied a different line a bit further down the ridge with no issues noted. Once at our desired drop in point, we dropped one at a time on one of the E facing shots before reaching the summit. First skier descended without issue. The second skier triggered a wet slide which started small in depth, width and speed, but quickly widened and gained momentum as it picked up more snow and ran down the hill, we estimate approximately 800’. Skier 2 was able to ski to the skier’s right of the slide and safely ski down to skier 1. Skier 3 then dropped, triggering another wet slide which further widened the slide path, but recognized this and again skied skier’s right safely down to skiers 1,2. Finally, skiers 4 and 5 dropped skier’s right of slide path with no further slides triggered. This was a wake up call for us. There were several personal factors we overlooked, most notably complacency. The avy report was green today. We didn’t think much about the warming snow and the time it took us to reach the top of our line. After the first skier had dropped without issue, we did not fully assess the terrain. Things we did well: we had radios, we were able to be in direct contact with each other and this gave us ability to tell the skiers actively skiing down if anything else was happening as they made turns. We all had beacons. We are all experienced skiers and familiar with skiing variable snow. We kept each of us within eyesight during our ski. Finally, when we were in a safer place, we were able to debrief the situation. We were also lucky. None of us did not make a mistake (fall) which could have resulted in one of us being caught and carried, injured or worse, buried. The slide didn’t propagate to a further width which would have resulted in our “safe” meeting spot, not being so safe anymore. The slide moved relatively slow overall, giving us time to react to the situation. Overall this was a great learning experience for us. Things are about to get more dicey with snow incoming. Stay safe out there and stay vigilant.