Party of 3 went to ski Maybird Couli the morning of 3-27-20. Going up, there were signs of activity during the storm typical of a couloir, but minimal signs of any recent wind transport or slab over the debris. Two in the party had Verts while one did not. As such, the two with Verts found themselves ahead of the person without (mistake 1). The two with Verts were told to go ahead and ski East Lisa by the one without, while they caught up (mistake 2).

As the two went ahead, they gained the ridge that separates East Lisa and Maybird Couli. As they skinned up the ridge, they skirted the top of the Maybird Couli. At one point, there was a small “whumph.” From the perspective of the two, there was no sign of a slide as far as they could see. The two continued onward and skied East Lisa. Upon regaining the East Lisa/ Maybird Couli ridge (~00:50 later), the two noticed a slide with a crown 5-10” deep and about 75’ or so in width that went across the top of the main West arm of Maybird Couli (the arm most of our vert track went up). The two contacted the other member in the party to see if that slide involved them. It still wasn’t clear that the two ahead had set it off remotely.

From the perspective of the skier/booter that got caught/carried-

It was about 9AM and the two skiers in the party had reached the ridge (on Verts, I was just booting) in the photo of the boot track with the dogleg up and to the left. I figured I would catch up to them on the ridge and if they had skied I would wait for them to ascend from skiing East Lisa. A few minutes after the photo was taken I looked up to assess my progress up the boot pack, to my horror there was a massive cloud of snow barreling towards me. When I looked back at the photos I was surprised to see blue sky because my memory of the day was cloudy cover. I can only imagine it is that cloud of snow stuck in my head. I did my best to try and get out of the way by traversing to the right but there was no time. When the cloud hit me it knocked me to the right spinning my head down hill and then the tumbling began. My thoughts turned to what was below. I knew we had come through a cliff ban “or was it two”. I was sure I was going to go through them and I could only imagine that I was going to have significant trauma from them and then I was going to get fully buried. At this point I was fighting to do anything but the snow was doing whatever it wanted with me. From the Grace of God my right hand hit something or it may have been my skies on my back that dug into the snow spun me around and I came to a stop.

I was face down coughing snow out of my mouth and throat but I wasn’t buried. “Wait I’m not buried., and I didn’t hit the cliff ban.” Once I had my bearings I assessed what was left, I had lost a pole and one ski. The remaining ski was hanging only from my waist loop and had come out of the cross carry shoulder hook. I could see my pole slightly uphill from me and I ran up and grabbed it. Once I retrieved it, I put my one ski on and tried to call and text the other two in my party to see if they were on the ridge, no answer and no response. I turned my beacon to search and proceeded to search the remaining slide below me. I never picked up a signal and the slide's toe after looking at Strava ran about 700 vertical feet below where I stopped, I was taken by the avalanche about 500 vertical feet and it had come from 400 feet above me a total of approximately 1600 vertical feet. I hadn’t seen any other equipment above me and none on the way down besides my helmet that was sitting on top of the toe. After getting off to the side in a safe location I began again trying to call and text for the next 30-40 min and then a call came in and it was one from my party. I proceeded to tell them what had happened and that I was safe.

They were back on the ridge looking at the crown that had remotely been triggered from their skin track but hadn’t been visible to them at all. I let them know I had lost a ski and hoped they would find the ski on the way down but no luck. Once regrouped we headed down to the cars as things were warming up and we didn’t want to face wet snow problems being it was south facing terrain.

Back to the party on top-

The slide was remotely triggered. The whumph occurred about 15’ away from the closest point of the crown. From there it propagated around the entire entire top of the East chute. The entire area had been cross loaded, yet there was very little evidence of wind even while skinning up the ridge.

The most troubling aspect of this accident is that the two members in the party who set off the slide had no way of knowing there was a slide, let alone knowing a member of their party was caught in it. While avoiding all remotely triggered avalanches is not possible, the parties should have stuck together. If parties do decide to separate (which they should not in this kind of terrain), it is essential that lines of communication remain open and are monitored. While the member of the party who was hit by the avalanche tried to contact the other two members, they were not responsive. This caused the avalanche victim to then search for the other two members. While the use of cell phones in the backcountry is a topic of much debate, most parties do not use something like a BC Link. Cell phones can be essential tools for communicating when there is service (which there was for this entire tour). This would have saved the avalanche victim from searching for the other two party members under the hang fire of the slide, while also notifying the other two members of what happened.

Not separating (i.e. Have line of sight of all party members), and ensuring communication is open and monitored if separation must occur are the key mistakes we made. We hope others read this and learn from our mistakes.