philfort Posted April 9, 2001 Share Posted April 9, 2001 This past Saturday, my friend Matt and I skied up to Snowy Lakes below Tower Mountain, in the Washington Pass area. In the late afternoon, we left in search of some north-facing powder slopes - the only viable option was the northwest face of a 7100ft ridge about 1/2 mile south of Snow Lakes. As we approached the highest point on the ridge, the sun was low, and providing really nice light on the bowl we wanted to ski. I told Matt I'd stay where I was to get a picture of him descending the powder. He continued skiing to the top, on the "windward" side, just below the corniced ridge. I saw that there were a few cornices along a far rib parallel to the fall line, and thought there might be some cross-loading of the slopes. Matt indicated he would definitely evaluate the snow pack before heading down. He didn't end up having to. I was fiddling with my camera, when I heard him yell something. I looked up, and the saw the entire slope below us was disintegrating. Matt was standing 30 or 40 feet above the fracture line. The slab broke into chunks and sped down the hillside, over cliffs, through trees, in a cloud of snow. I've never seen a "real" slab avalanche before - it moved with horrific speed! A person would have no chance in that. It was all over within seconds. We saw the debris flow a good distance across the flats at the base of the 700ft slope. After recovering from the shock, Matt very carefully made his way back to me, and we tried to get a better look at the slide. We headed back along the ridge towards camp, and were suprised when we saw the fracture had propagated over an ajoining ridge, and taken out a significant portion of the next slope over. The crown looked about 18 inches deep, and probably 3 feet deep in places. Using the terrain features, and the topo map, we calculated the size of the slide. The fracture line was 300 yards wide, and the slide travelled for about 1/3 of a mile. The aspect of the bowl was mostly NW, some N. The cornice overhung the opposite side of the ridge, which was interesting. It seems there was some cross-loading going on. When we got back to camp, we moved our tent, which was at the bottom of a treeless south-facing gully :-) The next day, we also noticed some instability on the relatively flat, suncrusted slopes around Snowy Lake. Twice we heard big whoomping noises. Needless to say, we stayed off any steeper slopes, and didn't get much skiing in. Be careful out there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highclimb Posted April 9, 2001 Share Posted April 9, 2001 damn thats a big slide! glad you guys didnt get hurt. Aidan [This message has been edited by highclimb (edited 04-09-2001).] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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