Bridger Range Natural Avalanche

Bridger Range Natural Avalanche

From an email: "As we approached the slope today, we immediately noticed that there wasn't going to be much skiing going on there today- the entire slope had slid. Big. As far as we could tell, it was a natural avalanche and happened within at least the last 24hrs of us being there. There probably wasn't more than six inches of snow left on the slope. Looked like it had possibly been subject to cross-wind loading. The crown varied from 3ft to at least 5ft in thickness. Slope angle varied anywhere from 37º-40º at the crown to around 30º on the southern edge of the slide path. The slide broke off at the top of the meadow anywhere from 6ft to 6in downhill from the trees, and propagated from the northern edge of the meadow all the way across to almost the southern edge. Debris pile was pretty large." Photo: Jens Anderson    

Bridger Range, 2010-02-13