
A total of seven skiers and snowboarders were caught in an avalanche outside of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort boundaries Monday, according to a report from the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center.
The soft slab avalanche was triggered by one skier with six other individuals below who were caught and carried in the North Bowl below the “Lost Lifty” line just outside of the resort. Of the seven people involved, one was partially buried with only a ski boot above the surface of the snow. At that point, the group immediately gathered to perform a rescue and pull that person from the snow. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort personnel then responded to the incident and helped evacuate the skiers and riders.
The avalanche was given an r3 rating for its relative size, meaning it posed “considerable danger,” and luckily there were no deaths.
The final Bridger Teton Avalanche Center observation summary reads:
In the upper elevations, very dense, new snow (up to 20 perccent!) and consistently strong winds have created a hard slab about 2-3 feet thick that is sitting on the old snow interface that was buried on 1/31. Good visibility revealed relatively little natural avalanche activity in the area. We noticed one large crown (three-plus feet) above Central Couloir and several other smaller crowns (~one foot) on steep features. It’s likely that many avalanches have already been filled in by the wind. It should be noted that many large avalanches were triggered this morning with explosives by the Jackson Hole Ski Patrol.
Ski penetration was only about 2-4” deep, which would explain why human triggering appeared to be stubborn throughout much of the day. However, the large skier triggered avalanche that occurred in Rock Springs North Bowl late this afternoon shows that triggering an avalanche is still possible despite the usual “punchy” or “upside down” warning signs associated with storm/wind instabilities not being obvious.
The snowpack is saturated and mostly cohesionless below 7,500’ from the rain and above freezing temperatures. (We) noticed seven or eight natural avalanches on the Wilson Faces. Several of the debris piles were large enough to bury a person.