Details

• Date: 2016/05/12

• Observer: blase reardon
• Organization: Forecaster, CAIC

CAIC Comments

Location

• BC Zone: Aspen
• Area Description: Upper Castle Creek. Mace Peak 5/11; Castle Peak 5/12.

Snowpack

• Snowpack Description: We found (and continue to find) a lack of spring snowpack in the elks. Thin to barely thick crust on top of a nice late-winter powder layer. This activity is the first I’ve seen in a long time. We booted up the same aspect, finding absolutely crappy snow, thigh-deep post-holing all the way to the ridge. The ski on the north face was similar. Breakable to barely breakable crust.

Avalanches

• Avalanche Description: Headed up Castle Creek yesterday to take a look at East Castle, looked great, knew there were a skier/splitter pair headed up Montezuma but when we finally skied mace after walking all over Pearl Basin and having lunch, they still hadn’t summited and they had been well ahead of us all day. We did witness a small point release while we were on Mace yesterday (5/11) that stepped down twice, with the larger step being about about 18” deep, maybe 50 feet wide. Significant debris pile. (see sunrise photo) This morning we headed up that same drainage to ski East Castle, with the goal of booting up the couloir to the north of the ski line (lookers right). As we approached we saw that East had run. Thin slide but sizable debris as well. Once we gained the ridge near the summit, we realized it was triggered by the skier in that group yesterday. Must have been around noon. I didn’t get a shot of the crown, but it was ridge to ridge (15-20 meters) about 25cm deep. Significant. And it ran full track. Not a huge slide, but super consequential. The skiers tracks then cut across the bed surface and they skied the north couloir and exited. Based on the depth of their tracks on the exit compared to ours it was mid afternoon.

	Date	Location/Path	#	Elev	Asp	Type	Trig	SizeR	SizeD
	2016/05/12  †	Castle Creek	1	TL	N	L	N	R2	D2
Date: 2016/05/12 (Estimated) Observer: blase reardon Organization: Forecaster, CAIC Area Description: Mace Peak Landmark: Castle Creek Comments: Stepped down twice, with larger step about 18" deep and 50' wide.
	2016/05/12  †	Castle Creek	1	>TL	E	SS	AS / u	R3	D2
Date: 2016/05/12 (Estimated) Observer: blase reardon Organization: Forecaster, CAIC Area Description: East Face, Castle Peak Landmark: Castle Creek Elevation: 13800 ft Maximum Crown: 25 cm Comments: See above.

Media

Images

Figure 1: Debris from a skier-triggered slab in highly consequential terrain. Image 5/12/16.

Figure 2: North face of Castle Peak, with skier below for scale. A slide the afternoon before stepped down twice and produced the large debris pile. Image 5/12/16.

Figure 3: Consolation prize. Breakable crust on N face of Castle Pk.