Avalanche: Butler Fork

We came across an avalanche on our way up to Soldier Peak today. Based on the amount of new snow on top of the debris we are guessing it went last night or in the afternoon yesterday. Hard to tell if it was natural or triggered by a near by ski track (skier's left). Starting on the looker's left side of the slide it was about 3.5' deep and got shallower the further looker's right it went down to about 1'. In some places it went to the ground and in other it looked like it was within the old snow. Not crazy huge, but definely enough to bury a person especially considering it dumped right into the gully. Quite a few ski tracks around it. We also had a couple of loud collapses that had our hairs standing on end today.

SS-U-R2-D2.5-G

Forecater Notes

We went to look at this avalanche on 12.30.2022. This avalanche failed 28cm from the ground on or below a 2cm ice layer (denoted by black crystal card). This layer did not fail with an ECT and took considerable prying after ECTX to get it to propagate. Accessing the site we boot packed up on the ice layer. Skiers left side the avalanche broke below the ice layer and in the middle it broke above the ice layer. We did not access the deeper skiers right side of the avalanche as it was the steeper side and there was more hangfire than we were comfortable being underneath. If this avalanche had fanned out it would have not been an issue for skiers. HOWEVER, because it piled up in the gully it was deep enough to bury a skier. We classified it as an unknown trigger, although there was a ski track approximately 50' to the skiers left side that may have triggered this avalanche. Read more about the field day HERE.