Avalanche: Chugach State Park

**Note** A friend asked me to come out 5 Feb and look at the avalanche they triggered the day prior and give them some pointers for instability tests and observations and to see why it happened.

Wind Slab released when skier was descending down the slope at it's steepest angle. The slab fractured at the bottom of a convex feature in the terrain as it was rolling over to steeper terrain, which was where the skier skied. 2 layers of hard slab (P hardness) released with another 2 hard slab layers (P & 1F hardness) underneath and over faceted grains. The weak layer appeared to be either facets or simply a weak interface.

Skier hikes/skis this location regularly.
The slope had alot of bare spots with vegetation and rocks showing through. The spot where the avalanche happened was one of few spots filled in with snow near the top of the hill.

The slide stopped when it came up against a small bunch of alders. The skier was able to self rescue but had to probe for a few minutes to find a ski that had come off during the slide. The ski was buried about 1m deep. No injuries.