Feb 18, 2006, Paradise and Avalanches

My ski-buddy PeterC abandoned me this weekend to attempt an overnight ski trip http://www.turns-all-year.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=tr0602;action=display;num=1140368165. It was too cold for me and my 20 degree bag (and I'm a little on the lazy side), so my girlfriend took pity on me and accompanied me down to Rainier to look for some turns in the sun.

We started out from the parking lot at Paradise around 9:30 AM. I skinned and she snowshoed east towards Mazama Ridge, and then went up to investigate some open slopes that were West facing and potentially wind-loaded from the strong, gusting Easterly winds.

As we climbed we noticed a skier who came around the corner from Panorama Face and headed towards the slope we were curious about. After he was about half-way up the face, the slope kicked off about 100 feet above him and about 100 feet wide, with a 6-12" crown. It slid like a melting pat of butter for a couple seconds before breaking up into chunks (I'll stop the butter simile here), and running down slope for a couple hundred feet. (I'll try to post pictures this evening)

My girlfriend and I watched like hawks as he was deposited (fortunately only waste-deep) at the bottom, and then did double-time over to the slope to check on him. By the time we got there, a couple other skiers had skied by (but didn't stop - I guess it wasn't interesting enough an accident to warrant them stopping and checking on the victim?) He had also picked himself up and skied down to us - unharmed!
Here's a picture of the slide (which is the same slide as posted in the comments below):


After chatting with him for a while (we promised to keep his identity a secret from the TAY crowd), we concluded that he was OK, and decided to head over to Panorama Face, which he said was soft but stable. I was a little spooked and was inclined to abandon any search for turns right then, but I figured we could check it out.

So we headed around the corner and joined the line of people ascending Panorama Face to Panorama Point. We were about half-way up when two skiers came down and released another avalanche - this one heading straight towards us! After a mad scramble, my girlfriend running in her snowshoes and I tripping over my skis to get out of the way, we watched the avalanche sweep by us and stop on the flat. The skiers who released it were unharmed by the 50' wide slide with a 6" crown.

At this point, we decided that the avalanche conditions might not be low.

So I sent my girlfriend down the slope to the flat while I clamped my split-board back together and booted up 50 feet to an undisturbed section of the slope and hurriedly dug a pit. The first 6" consisted of a very dense, cohesive windslab (couldn't stick a finger into it), followed by a crust, and dense snow below it. I dug the pit quickly but concluded that conditions were pretty stable under the crust. When I tried to isolate columns of snow to do a shovel shear test the top 6" would slide off in a cohesive layer before I could get my shovel in. Looked like there might have been a hoar frost layer it was sliding on, but I didn't examine it closely, and instead hurriedly dug a Ruschblock/shred-block pit because the results of my pit test combined with the two avalanches I had witnessed made me a little suspicious of the slope. I barely placed my board and feet on the block when the whole block slid off.

I decided to try a little experiment and snowboard down the 100 feet or so to the flat in an undisturbed section of the slope to the West. I was convinced I would trigger a small avalanche and was ready to exit quickly out of it back to the bootpacked snow, but it quite surprisingly didn't slide. I think that this was because I was far enough West that the snow was more scoured than deposited - it's also possible that I wasn't loading the snow enough.

So, after warning everyone I came across to watch out for the lee slopes, I made my way back down to the parking lot with my (now rather cold) girlfriend, ate our sandwiches and then drove home. A short, sunny day with some fun turns, and some eye-opening avalanche experiences.