R&R

Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Flagstaff Ridge

Flagstaff Shoulder

9,500'

Southeast

38°

Unintentionally Triggered

Soft Slab

Wind Drifted Snow

New Snow/Old Snow Interface

8"

100'

800'

Two of us started up at about 10:00 and saw only one other group headed up toward Cardiff (and a few near the bottom working on a kicker.)Knowing the danger was still high per UAC, we decided to hike up Flagstaff Shoulder and ski down the Flagstaff Shoulder staying along the ridge. after reaching False Flag summit, we did a ski cut under the ridge to test the wind affected snow. Nothing went but that didn't change our plans. Both of us took turns skiing down favoring just east of the ridge in soft snow. Small cornices had formed on the east side of the ridge partway down - we avoided them. After re-grouping at about the 9500' elevation, Skier 1 started down a small section of steeper angle just east of the ridge and it immediately broke on a wind-loaded rollover section with the initial crown about 50' in length 5' behind skier. Skier 2 immediately yelled to notify and the triggering skier and Skier 1 angled back to the top of the ridge to avoid the avalanche. The slide propagated to about 75-100 ft wide and ran down hitting a roller and continuing over to run a total of about 800 ft. We had seen no one else in the area above or below us. We worked our way down to the base to observe. Warm temperatures. Flat light. Overcast. Slight wind (more up top.)