Avalanche: Girdwood

As the third skier in our group was heading down the spine he ventured slightly further skiers left than the previous two skiers. At this point we saw the slope break approximately 30 feet above him. It propagated across multiple aspects and at points the crown was 3-4 feet deep. The skier was swept 1000 feet over multiple cliff bands, finally coming to rest partially buried at approximately 2800ft.

We toured up and over maxs with the hope of finding some soft snow on Big League. The western face looked pretty manky from sun effect, so we headed up the north side of Big League and gained the ridge proper. We ultimately decided on skiing the northern most spine as it had good coverage and excellent snow quality. We were aware of the recent skier triggered avalanche on Captains Chair, however were reassured by lack of wind effect and relatively isolated terrain feature. The first two skiers enjoyed great snow with no evidence of instability. However about halfway down the third skier triggered a large slab which pulled him over multiple cliff bands.

We immediately lost sight of the skier after he triggered the slide. Once the debris stopped we quickly found him partially buried near the toe of the debris. Once he was partially excavated it was clear he had a femur fracture. Rescue services were contacted and he was uneventfully airlifted to a hospital. Big shout out to a local CPG guide who saw us while he was out on a ski and came and rendered aid.

Overall this was a very spooky experience. We believe that this was likely triggered on the faceted layer from mid march which has not been active for the past few weeks. It broke mid face, very deep and across multiple aspects. We feel very fortunate that the caught skier escaped with only a femur fracture, as this could have easily proved fatal. Overall we had grown to trust the snowpack down south, which in retrospect was not wise. My personal takeaway is that in years with persistent weak layers, the consequences of venturing into complex terrain should not be underestimated.