CAIC

Details

This avalanche was coded in prior observation

BC Zone: Southern San Juan
Area Description: Below Handkerchief Mesa, E facing aspect, open face near treeline. Overnight winds loaded the North and East facing slopes.
Route Description: Riding from Beaver Creek on road 360 to a route South of Handkerchief Mesa in order to get on top of it.

Weather Description: Overcast and chilly, 10*F, Calm winds, E facing aspect, 11,800'. Recent storm cycle had just ended the night prior.

Snowpack Description: 105cm total depth. Mostly a soft over hard pack, with a weaker (1F) layer approximately 70cm down from the surface (bottom of the storm slab). A compression test in a snow pit yielded a CTM at said layer. Interface between these layers had angular grains.

Avalanche Description: The East facing aspect below Handkerchief Mesa is where we saw the slide from either that morning or the night before. We reached the area at 1:00pm that day, and after an assessment of the slide path and debris field felt safe enough to explore the debris and toe. The crown broke several hundred yards across the bottom of the wind lip on an East facing, 32degree slope, and spanned nearly the entire face. Based off the size of the smaller trees that were broken and the amount of debris I would classify it as an R3-D2 Avalanche.