April 1, 2011, Crystal Mountain

Thanks for the pics Susan! Rookie question; Is the patrol probing the debris just in case some in-bounds skiers got caught in it?

The area was closed and the avalanche was triggered by ski patrol.

author=SnowGirl link=topic=20403.msg86740#msg86740 date=1301762954]
The area was closed and the avalanche was triggered by ski patrol.

Was it triggered with explosives I would hope?

There's a lot of nervous patrol on the hill right now. Bear Pit went off big too. Trees scattered like spaghetti sticks on the kitchen floor in the basin. Not sure of the size of the crown, but were talking a well skied area that stepped down i heard about 9 ft or so.

North and South closed today, but it sounds like they are going to get a copter to do the avy work on the next clearing.

I talked to Paul Baugher today about the situation and he took some time to really lay out the problem. In short form there is a shearing effect where the January old layer is moving one way and the upper the other. Think fault line, when it goes it goes big. It's really hard to pinpoint areas where there is going to slide than the others. But steep slopes would be a good start. So on the surface things are looking stable but that old layer from the Jan drought is coming back to haunt us again.
The inbound avy in Bear Pit and Rock face are sights to behold the power of avalanches.
Niagras is another area of concern, that went off too. It is amazing that places that have had the crap skied out of it for so many weeks is going off so huge. If your thinking of going out avoid the steep stuff and run outs. Paul puts the avy danger as high in the Crystal local right now. East Peak, Bullion would NOT be on my list right now.

Joe,
So do you know why they were probing the debris from Rock Face?

There were leading tracks and there was the potential that there was someone possibly trapped in the debris since it was open when it went off as a natural slide. It must have been tough to probe given the depth and thickness of the debris. The deposition is well over 20 ft near the end of the slide. Not sure how they will get a road up Kellys gap anytime soon. I think they eliminated the possibility that anyone is missing today.

author=Joedabaker link=topic=20403.msg86751#msg86751 date=1301780468]
There's a lot of nervous patrol on the hill right now. Bear Pit went off big too. Trees scattered like spaghetti sticks on the kitchen floor in the basin. Not sure of the size of the crown, but were talking a well skied area that stepped down i heard about 9 ft or so.
...
The inbound avy in Bear Pit and Rock face are sights to behold the power of avalanches.

Photo of the avy debris in Bear Pits, posted on a Crystal patroller's Facebook page a few hours ago:

The rock face slide was a natural that happened around noon when Kellys gap was open. The probe line was more of a precaution than anything else. Around 3:30 patrol cleared the area and bombed the face at which time it went big and took out most of the gap road. As I was headed down around 5ish they tossed a few more bombs on it and everything went again. Lets say it was a good show.

Few more pics and some vid from Kim Kircher.

http://kimkircher.com/2011/04/02/climax-avalanches-at-crystal-unusual-snowpack-causing-big-slides/