Snowboarder triggered. Briefly caught and carried before stepping off to side. Avalanche was 1'-6' deep.
Avalanche Conditions:
Our string of human triggered avalanches continued yesterday. While walking up the west ridge of Reynolds Peak a skier remotely triggered an avalanche 100’ away on a north-facing slope that was steeper than 35 degrees. The slide was over 2’ deep and 150’ wide. There was another remotely triggered avalanche in Daly Canyon on a steep northeast facing slope at 8,500’. That avalanche was 1 to 2’ deep at 40’ wide. Two skiers on a west facing subridge of the Silver Fork drainage triggered a slide 1 to 2’ deep and 50’ wide. This avalanche initially broke just below the skier, but propagated up above him onto a low angle slope. Fortunately he was able to dig into the bed surface and avoid a potentially nasty ride. And finally a snowboarder on Little Water Peak triggered an avalanche 1 to 4’ deep and over 100’ wide on a steep northeast facing wind roll. He was initially caught in the avalanche near it’s flank. Fortunately he quickly rode off of the slab escaping potentially serious consequences.
Although there has been no natural avalanche activity reported in the last four days, within the last twenty days there has been a human triggered avalanche reported every day except for one. Most of these avalanches have been triggered from shallow or rocky areas, and many of them have been triggered remotely. I hope that this level of activity speaks for itself. The backcountry avalanche conditions remain quite tricky and very dangerous on northwest through east facing slopes, steeper than 35 degrees and above 8,500’.
Over the next few days mountain temperatures will be on the rise. Today wet point release avalanches are possible on steep sun exposed slopes. As the week continues it may become more difficult to trigger avalanches into old snow from thick areas, but if you hit a thin spot you could trigger a large and dangerous avalanche.