Details

• Date: 2019/12/09

• Observer: Public

Location

• BC Zone: Front Range
• Area Description: Berthoud Pass E side on a NW facing aspect. No burials. No injuries. Party self extricated and self evacuated. No 911 or SAR response initiated.
• Route Description: Tree skiing with a rough average of 5-7 ft between trees.

Weather

• Weather Description: Location: Berthoud Pass Elevation: roughly 12,600 ft (ISH) Aspect: NW Temperature: 15 F Wind: 10-20 mph coming from W mainly but was sporadic throughout day Clouds: Active storm. Dropped maybe couple inches during day.

Snowpack

• Snowpack Description: Same as Weather for requested info. Powder with wind blown above trees. Facet present above tree looks roughly 12”. Facet was NOT initially present upon entering tree line. Tree line elevation unknown (sorry). Off the main parking lot at berthoud pass by the warming up. Skiing up the E side and dropping off N from there. Above tree line there is super unstable (as I’m sure ya’ll already know. You guys would probably find interest in going over there and digging. If you haven’t already!).

Avalanches

• Avalanche Description: So, once we got down into tree line we started skiing trees down. It was a slope of consisting of only trees as far as we could tell. When we went to drop the final pitch into the valley on the first turn the slope went. It propagated from where we were skiing in the trees into the very thinly wooded slope next door. Maybe 60 meters to skiers left. It broke at ground level. I was NOT carried. I side stepped down on the ground until at snow again. Then we moved to a safe zone and got out of dodge.

	Date	Location/Path	#	Elev	Asp	Type	Trig	SizeR	SizeD
	2019/12/09  †	Berthoud Pass east side	1	TL	N		AS / r	R1	D1.5
Date: 2019/12/09 (Estimated) Landmark: Berthoud Pass east side