No one caught, carried, buried, injured or killed

General Comments: We got away with a very bad decision today without suffering any consequences. After multiple great runs on Chicken Shit Ridge (CSR), we decided to exit via the skier's left side of Days Draw. We knew it had run to the ground Dec. 23rd and there were still weak facets. Our thinking was there was about 2 feet of snow sitting on top of the ground and there was no evidence of a slab. There was no wind effect on any of the snow in the area and we had seen no cracking or settlement or any other signs of instability. There were two sets of tracks from the previous day on the right side of Days Draw. By the end of the day, the 9 people from 3 parties had made a lot of tracks on CSR, so the uncut snow on Days Draw was very appealing. We have skied this slope many many times over the years and knew the terrain very well. We discussed the potential risks and decided to proceed. As you can see/hear in the video, our biggest concern was hitting rocks in the shallow snow near the top of the run. We thought we might get some loose snow sluffs but expected them to be manageable.

I went first and hit a rock on my second and 4th turns. When I was about 200 vertical feet down the slope I saw the slope begin to shatter like a window pane beneath my skis and to my left. I skied off to the right and stopped. The avalanche released about 100-150 vertical feet above me, was about 70-100 feet wide and it rocketed down the slope which is about 35-38 degrees in that area. The upper-most crown was on a slight convex part of the slope. The ground and some remaining old facets were the bed surface. It entrained quite a bit of snow, gathered a lot of speed and plowed into the trees below. It plastered some of the tree trunks to a height of about 6 feet (see photo) and ran 450 vertical feet down the slope.

At the place where I stopped the snow did not go downhill, but there were numerous cracks in the snow. After the avalanche went by, I immediately traversed onto the bed surface of rocks and old facets. I could see there really wasn't much snow left above me so I felt safe on the bed surface. Between me and the top of the slope was mostly rocks, so my two companions could not descend the bed surface to me, and we felt the snow that had not slid yet, was very likely to slide if they attempted to descend in the snow adjacent to the avalanche path. My companions put their skins back on and walked back to the top of the ridge and descended CSR.

From where I was standing I could see the slide had run all the way to a bench a few hundred vertical feet below me. I knew there was little avalanche danger on the much more gentle terrain below the bench and felt that it was safer for me to descend than to attempt to gain the ridge through the hang fire and rocks. I side slipped and skied the bed surface and debris to the bench and then skied to the bottom and met my companions.

I’ve included a photo of the crown, a photo of the bed surface which was mostly rocks and facets, a photo looking down the path at the snow plastered on some trees, a photo looking across the width of the slide, and a photo of the toe located 450 vertical feet below the crown.

The avalanche is very difficult to see in the video, but the 1 minute video does provide some sense for how far down the slope I was when the avalanche broke out above me. In the video, you can see when I stopped skiing as the slope was breaking up.

Again, we completely underestimated the likelihood of a slab on this slope and I’m feeling very fortunate we didn’t suffer any consequences for our poor judgement.