Public Field Report

Observation Date:

March 21, 2021

Submitted:

March 22, 2021

Zone or Region:

Galena Summit and Eastern Mtns

Activity:

Skiing/Snowboarding

Location:

Back of Owl Creek

Did you observe any avalanches?

Yes

Avalanche Type:

Wet Loose

Size:

Size 1: Relatively harmless to people

Elevation:

Around 8,000

Aspect:

Comments:

We started traveling around 8 am on Sunday 3/21 and observed numerous wet looses on the south slopes above us. They seemed on the fresh side but we did not see any go live.

Did you see shooting cracks?

Did you experience collapsing or whumpfing?

Yes, Isolated

We had an awesome tour out Owl Creek! While we were gaining an E/NE facing ridge we experienced collapses a number of times as we would travel towards the wind loaded side of the ridge. We also experienced this on a NW slope while traveling over a fairly old slide runout. We skied terrain above 35 degrees and experienced sluffing around us. We skied the north facing couloir at the head of Owl Creek and had small wind slabs release as we skied for the top 150 or so feet of the couloir. The wind slabs ranged in thickness from 1 to 4 inches. They broke off in small chunks. There was still fantastic powder out there! You can see the couloir we skied as well as the avalanche debris that we felt the collapsing on in the photo below.