To avoid canyon traffic, we agreed on Sunday morning a later start at the Maybird Couloir objective. Looking at the avalanche report, the weather forecast, and the Cardiff Peak wind rose, we were aware of the concerns of new snow and especially wind slab formation in tight terrain. We were not terribly concerned with warming or solar influence.

We started up and noticed tracks (both up and down) in the couloir and began following the obvious skin track up. Along the first 1500ft of up the skin track was covered up periodically, which we had attributed to new snow skier sluff on the descent. Before the chock, as we were ascended we experienced one of two spindrift coming down off the climbers left side wall and minimized time close to the wall. The following ~900ft through the choke we booted as the skin track was hard to follow and this kept us to the climbers right and out of any potential spindrift exposure.

The skin track became evident again and we transitioned back to skins. Visibility was intermittent all day with fog and clouds rolling in and out through the up. As we started to skin, I made a mental note that we should be staying in line of sight and treat the up as the down as we had not brought radios. I saw and heard two more spindrifts, but there was no evidence that they were moving large enough to go into the skin track.

Another 250ft of vertical, in intermittent visibility, I heard my partner call out. I paused and looked down and saw him on his back. I called out if he was ok, but the wind prevented hearing a reply. A few moments later, the clouds let up and I could see him again, standing up. I asked if he was ok and got a positive reply. He looked well and didn't communicate any issues, so I continued up for another ~150ft.

I had lost sight of my partner again and so when on the far right, away from the ridge paused and waited. The wait extended, so I ate and drank. A few minutes later, I added layers to prevent getting cold. I called down now worried that I hadn't seen my partner in some time and he should have come up to me by now. I had not realized that 23 minutes had passed, I only discovered this after the fact looking at my gps track.

The clouds cleared and things quieted down and I called down again. This time he reported he had been knocked down and carried ~100ft by spindrift/new snow avalanche.

I immediately pulled skins and skied down to him, where he was on the climbers' right edge under a small (waist high) tree. When I got to him he explained that he thought that I wanted to push to the top since we were only ~700ft from topping out. I explained that I didn't understand he had been caught and carried, I thought he had just slipped and fallen in the skin track. We both agreed that radios would have helped and it was time to GTFO.

He packed up and as we were about to start our descent, having stood there for less than 3.5 minutes, I looked down and saw snow coming down across my skies, looked up to see another loose/new snow avalanche coming down, I braced my hips, hoping to remain upright, but the forces were too high as the moving snow was at least shin deep. I did not have time to put in my avalung mouthpiece.

I was caught and carried ~100ft. I laid on my back, kept my legs and arms wide for floatation. It took much force to pop my heel piece of my binding as I slide and my boot top put a significant amount of pressure on my calf causing a contusion.

I came a stop before the choke and the steeper part of the couloir. My partner came down to me, an despite some pain, we agreed it would be best to GTFO while we could still move and try to minimize our risk.

We skied down in pitches, moving off to skiers left when coming to a stop to avoid being entrained. I went first in case I had issues with my calf, my partner would be above able to assist, and we kept eyes above us for more moving snow.

We did not move or sluff any significant amount while skiing down or create any additional slides, even on the steeper pitches we were more concerned about.

We were able to make it down and reach the car without further incident. And while I had difficulty with walking, I was able to remove my ski boot pain-free.

Things we did right: We planned well, we kept to our time schedule, we were aware of objective hazards, weather, and conditions. Observations on the way up indicated stable snow in the main couloir. We minimized exposure to spindrift and tried to stay as far right as possible to stay out from under it as well as spacing out to avoid both of us not getting caught at the same time.

Things we did wrong: We did not focus on the entire 360° snowpack concerns. We were focused on the snowpack under our feet and not looking and couldn't see up above. Not have radios. I do not thing that either of us will travel without them again. Having a easy way to communicate what had happened would have significantly impacted our outcome. Had I have known my partner had been swept down in a new snow avalanche, I would not have continued up. I would not have wasted 23 minutes waiting for him to join me. I would have been able to help him get his gear together and move us out of the couloir. A simple "I was caught in a slide" radio message would have dramatically changed my course of action.

We got lucky. We both got swept and carried in the safest part of the couloir. We were fortunate to not be carried into objective hazards in the chokes and neither were buried or had injuries that prevented self-rescue.