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Avalanche: Catchers Mit

Observer Name
Gindlesperger, Winslow Passey, Robbins
Observation Date
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Avalanche Date
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Kessler Peak » Catchers Mit
Location Name or Route
Kesler Peak, East side, North facing slope
Elevation
9,700'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
40°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
12"
Width
150'
Vertical
300'
Caught
1
Carried
1
Buried - Partly
1
Comments

Breaking trail from Catcher's Mitt area back around to original uptrack. We heard a whoomp and remotely triggered a small pocket 30 ft. wide 1 ft. deep, continued to look for lower angle terrain, and heard a whomp and this slab broke above. It broke 100 ft above Gindlesperger and carried him into a tree where the snow piled up partially burying him with only head, one arm and backpack visible. He was unijured and second person (Passey) was intentionally spread out and able to approach and dig him out easily. The run before we skied Catcher's Mitt, and triggered two soft sluffs that were slow moving and managable but ran 500ft. down the slope. This was East facing. The sun came out and was quite warm, so we decided to move around to the more North slope to regain our uptrack!

Coordinates