Avalanche: Beginner Ridge exit

Observer Name
Eric and Amy Flygare
Observation Date
Friday, March 18, 2016
Avalanche Date
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Region
Logan » Logan River » Tony Grove » Beginner Ridge exit
Location Name or Route
Lower Beginner Bowl
Elevation
8,400'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
38°
Trigger
Snowmobiler
Trigger: additional info
Remotely Triggered
Avalanche Type
Hard Slab
Avalanche Problem
New Snow
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
3'
Width
200'
Vertical
400'
Comments

There was a lot more recent activity in the Tony area than we were expecting today. As we pulled up to the lake in the morning we noticed a large recent avalanche on the steep section of the lower Beginner Bowl. It looked like the slide occurred on Thursday and there was a snowmobile track on the slope 20 feet away from the crown. If it was a sympathetic release I doubt they even knew it happened. The slide was around 200 feet and 3 feet deep on a North Facing slope.

Comments

As we pulled up to the Lake we noticed plenty more slides around the lake some occurred during the latter part of the storm and one happened after the snow stopped falling, probably on Thursday.

Comments

There were plenty of people out testing the slopes. We watched several sledders highmarking right under a huge cornice on the south end of Cornice Ridge (Half Dome). We were relieved that we did not have to use our avalanche rescue skills to recover buried snowmobilers.

Comments

We dug a pit on a 40 degree Northeast facing slope around 9100 feet. Compression tests showed failures at the new and old snow interface at 23-27 taps. However the Extended Column Test would not propagate a failure, ECTN27. We rode North through East facing slopes above 8500 feet all day. The snow on the North facing terrain stayed dry all day. The East facing terrain was slightly affected by the sun but still rode fairly nice by 2:00 PM. Even Cornice ridge still held good snow at 2:00PM.

Coordinates