Avalanche: Sitka

The snow ontop of the thick Christmas Eve rain crust did not have slab like properties, so therefore was largely presenting as a minimal dry loose avalanche hazard with some skier-triggered sluffing. The winds from the SE, however, were actively transporting snow along the ridgeline, and while most all of the snow in the bowl was soft and unaffected by the wind, this mid-slope rollover has enough prominence that it caught the winds coming over the ridge from the SE and loaded the WNW side of this feature with snow creating a wind slab ontop of the Christmas Eve crust.

Four parties were skiing in the zone, and some groups were stepping out into the avalanche terrain beneath the peak. On the last run for a group of two snowboarders, one rider descended the rollover and as they turned along the convexity at the top of the rollover, they triggered the wind slab, which then entrained the dry loose snow in its path below creating a relatively moderate sized slide for the scale of this feature. The rider was caught and slowly carried to the toe of the debris. The avalanche was not big enough for them to have been buried, and the rider was able to stand up and ride out. (R2.5/D1)

Familiarity, perceiving this rollover not as an avalanche hazard, and existing tracks on the rollover feature may have contributed to the rider's decision to descend this terrain. This feature sits right on the boundary of where people ski low angle terrain or commit to the steeper, more obvious avalanche terrain. It is a good reminder that this small rollover feature can and does produce avalanches. Though we were not involved in this slide, we reflected that this was approached as a fairly typical day trip to Verstovia Bowl, and familiarity of terrain and complacency with the small terrain feature contributed to this incident. It was an avalanche that any of us could have triggered.

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