From email 1/9/22: "Skier triggered cornice failure avalanche. Broke at skis 10-12 feet from the lip. No one caught or injured."
From email 1/9/22: "Skier triggered cornice failure avalanche. Broke at skis 10-12 feet from the lip. No one caught or injured."
From email 1/9/22: "Skier triggered cornice failure avalanche. Broke at skis 10-12 feet from the lip. No one caught or injured."
From skiers in Cooke 1/9/21:
"Observed a couple of recent, new snow, wind slab avalanches that appeared to occur during the storm. Upper elevation, N-E aspects, all very steep, wind loaded terrain. Most appeared to be triggered by cornice falls, and nothing propagated very wide from what I could tell."
"Wind slab on East face of Sheep mountain today. D1.5,mid slope".
Photo from Crunchy the blue heeler (@crunchy_adventures)
From email 1/9/22: "Skier triggered cornice failure avalanche. Broke at skis 10-12 feet from the lip. No one caught or injured."
Saw this recent natural slide, probably a day or two old, while skiing on Emigrant. Start zone approx 10,400ft, E facing. We guessed the crown was 3-5ft deep. Evidence of wind loading on similar surrounding slopes, suggesting wind slab as culprit.
Down lower, we saw pockets of wind drifts, but these were small and easy to avoid. We did not venture up near the high ridges.
Toured up to the summit of Mt. Ellis this morning. The weather was clear skies, sunny, and a slight westerly breeze up top and along the ridge. Along the ridge we saw many small to medium sized cornices. We knocked a couple small ones off on to the slope below and they slid on a very firm wind loaded surface (pictures). There is quite a bit of firm wind loaded along on the ridge but we saw no shooting cracks or other signs of instability. We dug a pit on the East face just below the summit to evaluate the layer of facets near the ground and got an ECTX result. All signs were pointing to good stability and we enjoyed a very nice run down the Mt. Ellis Direct decent.
Dug snow pit south of Flanders Mountain on East facing aspect @ 9000ft. Result was ECTN 27 failing on ground level facets. Approximately 95 cm of snow at non wind transported areas. Evidence of wind loading above alpine. Skied below tree line.
