Monday, January 11, 2010

Avalanche on Aonach Mor

On the way up Aonach Mor this morning we heard reports of a "wee slide" being triggered on the West Face at the lowly altitude of about 600 metres. We had been planning to head to that sort of area anyway, so we decided to go and investigate. What we found was a hard slab avalanche had occurred. It was about 50 metres wide, and had run about 200 metres down the hill side. The crown wall reached a maximum depth over a metre, and was 50cm to 1 metre deep from most of it's length. A bit bigger than a "wee slide" I thought. The avalanche had run on a deep and particularly hard layer of small rounded crystals. Today's snow profile is a profile of the crown wall.

Looking south to where the crown wall height was at it's greatest (about 110cm). The first two pictures were taken from the location of the figure in the third picture.

Investigating the crown wall.

Looking back north along the crown wall, it is not too clear but it continues beyond where the figure is. This photo was taken from just below where the figure is in the first picture.