| Trigger | Natural | Remote Trigger | 0 |
| Avalanche Type | Hard Slab | Aspect | East Southeast |
| Elevation | unknown | Slope Angle | unknown |
| Crown Depth | unknown | Width | unknown |
| Vertical Run | unknown |
Avalanche: Seward
Location: Mt. Marathon treeline
Hiked up to start of bench trail (East Face) on Mt. Marathon just above treeline. Found an upside down snowpack at treeline ~725ft. Dug several hand pits. Observed many D2-3 avalanches on E, S and SE aspects.
Obvious signs of instability
| Recent Avalanches? | Yes |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | No |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | Yes |
Observer Comments
Walking on snow surface easily produced cracking. Strong NNW winds caused significant cross loading on the East face (as seen in photo). Signs of windloading on S and SE aspects of as well. Wind transported snow on ridgetops looked to be sublimating more than loading due to sustained 50mph+ NNW winds. Midway down the mountain and at treeline where winds were in the 15-30mph range there was significant loading and I saw naturally triggered wind slabs release down the race trail face (SE aspect)
Snow surface
melt-freeze crust
Snowpack
In several hand pits tests I found a 15cm layer (see photo) of pencil-hard meltforms (~5-8mm grains) from the most recent snowfall lying on top of fist-hard, moist, decomposing fragments (1mm grains). Shearing occurred with little effort.
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