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Avalanche: Tony Grove Area

Observer Name
Eric and Amy Flygare
Observation Date
Friday, March 11, 2022
Avalanche Date
Friday, March 11, 2022
Region
Logan » Logan River » Tony Grove Area
Location Name or Route
Tony Grove area
Elevation
9,300'
Aspect
East
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Snowboarder
Trigger: additional info
Remotely Triggered
Avalanche Type
Hard Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
12"
Width
200'
Vertical
100'
Comments
Today was a little crazy. After a really quiet and uneventful day snowboarding yesterday with no signs of any avalanches or instabilities, we rolled in to our zone of the day this morning with a little more confidence than a considerable day may have warranted. As we crested the ridge top near our target of the day the west wind was blasting and swirling. As we popped on to the ridge from the west and looked along the cornice line to the south the whole ridge broke loose. This slab was all super sensitive wind deposit. Probably 12" deep at its deepest and around 200' wide. There wasn't much of a slope for it to get moving on so it only ran 100ish vert.
Sooo, we were immediately back on our "A" game.
We dropped down to the next spot to take a look and noticed a couple of more ridgetop fractures and small slides, probably remote triggered by us since they looked very fresh. At this point we opted for the conservative route and thought we'd test out a small rollover (with speed) on our boards. It also broke and ran a short distance.
We ended up keeping it quite mellow for the day. Over and over we broke out wind slab after wind slab. All small and manageable. Our main concern was that the wind slab would step down into the deeper instabilities. Thus the choice of mellow slopes. This was by far the most eventful day we've seen in a long time.
On the way out, however, we noticed snowmo tracks everywhere... High marks under cornices and big lines with no consequences. We only saw one other small wind slab that popped out near the Naomi trail. I think a lot of people got very lucky today.
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