| Trigger | Skier | Remote Trigger | No |
| Avalanche Type | Soft Slab | Aspect | Southwest |
| Elevation | 2500ft | Slope Angle | 35deg |
| Crown Depth | 2in | Width | 30ft |
| Vertical Run | 40ft |
Avalanche: Turnagain
Location: Tincan Common SW Face
We skinned up the normal route on tincan, and skied a few laps on tincan trees since the light was quite flat, the snow was generally quite soft, with little to no evidence of wind activity. Around 3:00 we noticed the weather was starting to clear, and decided to try a lap on the SW face of common. We noticed significantly more wind loading compared to the northerly aspects we had skied earlier in the day, as far as I could tell there were no areas of the face that weren’t affected by the wind in some form. After one lap we skinned back up and skied the trees to the car.
Avalanche Details
As we started skiing down the SW face we noticed significantly more wind affected snow, but it appeared to be a shallow surface layer only about 2-3" thick. I skied down to a short convex roll, did one turn, and skied off to the side to see how the snow would react. It kicked loose a small fresh wind slab, it was pretty low energy and stopped as soon as the slope mellowed out. Andy followed and triggered a second smaller slide on a slightly shallower face. The rest of our group skied around via a lower angle route and did not trigger any slides. Informal tests revealed a 2-3" wind slab present over most areas of the face. We skied the rest of the run down to the valley taking care to keep an eye on the depth of the slab and avoid steeper terrain, and did not see any other avalanche activity. On the skin back up wind deposited snow was evident in many areas, we noticed shooting cracks in one area, but it was otherwise unreactive. None of these signs were present on similarly steep slopes on the N aspect of tincan trees, and the snow appeared to be much more stable.
Obvious signs of instability
| Recent Avalanches? | No |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | No |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | Yes |
Observer Comments
We didn't notice anything on northern aspects, but saw evidence of wind transport on southern angles, and noticed 3-4' shooting cracks in one 20' long stretch when skinning up the SW face of tincan common.
Weather
Temps were in the high 20s/low 30s all day, some small snow flurries in the morning but they stopped by noon. It was cloudy all day with flat light and occasional winds.
Snow surface
Northern aspects had settled soft snow, while southern aspects were more wind affected, ranging from light breakable crust to shallow wind slabs.
Snowpack
One informal snow pit on a southerly aspect revealed a 3" wind slab on a faceted layer.