CAIC

Details

BC Zone: Vail & Summit County
Area Description: Buffalo Mountain, outside Silverthorne. North chutes Silver/Little Elvis

Weather Description: Sunny, warm ~45 degree air temp with no wind on summit of Buffalo (12777') . A few inches of wet snow overnight with what seemed to be a hard freeze based on what I saw at my house in Farmers Corner (9100') and at nearby weather stations . Light winds overnight.

Snowpack Description: Snow on the east face route was wet in the trees for the first few inches, then firm underneath. As we ascended higher out of the trees, the snow seemed less wet and appeared to be well bonded. We skied the ~500 feet off of the summit to the entry to little Elvis with soft spring powder, no rollerballs/pinwheels etc. Assumed that once we turned to n side of compass it would be colder snow.

Avalanche Description: Our group of 2 triggered a lot of sluffing/ rollerballs as we skied the top 500 feet 1 at a time. The slope is north facing around 12000' at the top, low 40s slope angle. We were both pulled off to a safe spot and watched as a slow, wet loose pile slid on down, entraining the new snow (~3 inches worth) as it went. It left a nice firm bed surface to continue our descent, the rest of which went without incident. The underlying snow appeared to be solid, with no wetness on the surface underneath. As we got lower to the exit, below 10000', the snow got very wet. We carefully picked our way down and out of the exit. In retrospect, we started too late for the temperatures today and mistakenly assumed that north aspects would ski colder even that late in the day. Another group of 2 in silver around the same time reported a similar avalanche and similar conditions. The slide wasn't big, but if you weren't paying attention it could have easily taken you for a ride.

Date

Location/Path

Elev

Asp

Type

Trig

SizeR

SizeD

2019/04/23 ^†

buffalo Mountain

>TL

D1.5