Avalanche: Turnagain

Below is a bit of information on the South side Tincan avalanche today.

I was with a group of 4 people (3 skiers 1 boarder). We skinned up to the top of Common Bowl (if you go further on the ridge you can drop into Tincan Proper on the right and Todds on the left). We skied down Common bowl to the flat section between common bowl and where it knuckles over to the CFR ridge. At that point everyone I was with agrees that we didn’t notice a slide on CFR. We skinned up again. At the top we saw a group of 4 snowboarders. They took off directly down the ridge towards CFR and we dropped back in and skied Common bowl again. After common bowl we skied down to skiers left of CFR ridge and when we looked right we saw the crown and debris field. We immediately thought that the 4 snowboarders might have either triggered it or been in it. We skied down to the base of the debris field to start a search.

At the base of the debris field, we saw one of the snowboarders appear on the ridge to lookers left. He asked if we were OK, and we asked if they were OK. They had all their group with them. We did a grid search up the majority of the debris field until it got too steep that we were uncomfortable and didn’t pick up any signals.

Our thoughts are that the group of snow boarders probably remotely triggered the slide from above CFR ridge. Again, we didn’t see the slide but I think we came around the corner shortly after it occurred. The photos were taken from about half way up the debris field. We thought the crown at its maximum might have been 5-6′, but it may have looked bigger than it was because it seemed to be right at the cornice.