You think you're respecting it, but you're not

A good ski friend and I were booting up the final 20 vertical feet to the south sub-summit on Mt. Herman from Bagley Lakes today, positioning ourselves about ten feet back from the cornice lip. Suddenly we were in the air, moving straight down; felt like we chined off the rock wall and I was aware of being in the air for what seemed like a good while longer - then poof - on the slope (E facing gully). My friend got stood upright against the rock wall, unbelievably unhurt except for a hard thump on his thigh, as the double-decker bus sized cornice block exploded into pieces, ripped out the new wind-loaded snow on the top of the gully, and poured past him. I was on the slope, moving very fast in the debris, as the snow was sliding on the refrozen rained upon underlying pack. I swam my arms and made myself as broad and flat as I could and luckily stopped on top, about 200 VF below where I had dropped onto the slope, as the snow whizzed past me another 300 - 500 VF downhill. A second look suggested we had fallen maybe 50 feet with the cornice block failure. Dammit. I thought I was far enough back. I thought I respected cornices like I should. Monika was my buddy. A Glacier friend who skis Herman all the time said that cornice had sagged and developed a cleft 10 feet back - right where we booted - which was blown in like a crevasse, completely disguised. Wow, we got lucky. If the cornice bomb had made the snowpack fail deeper, we wouldn't be here. Such a lesson, survived, will never be forgotten.

The second picture shows our skin track, which had continued up to where there are remnants of our crossways ski tracks, where we transitioned. We were a couple feet above those tracks when it failed - removing part of our approach. The other tracks just to the right (west) are a couple's downtracks.

You can see the windlip of the cornice to the north end (below) and the south end (above where it failed) - the block that pulled out was basically a straight line connecting them. That's how wide it was. The pictures don't show how far down it was to the slope.

That sounds scary as hell! Glad you are OK.

Phew! Another cautionary tail of a cornice failure, I always try and remember these stories. Thanks for the reminder, so glad both of you are here to tell the tail.

Thank you for sharing. Serves as a powerful reminder for us all.

Grateful you guys got out unscathed.

Thanks for sharing. Glad you were only scared.

Thanks for sharing your story. Glad you're okay!