High Additional Loads.
1st March 2014
There’s been a lot of avalanches in Corrie Fionn this winter and there was another yesterday (Friday). It has a good catchment area, West-to NE with a plateau above it.
3 ski tourers crossing the corrie on Friday about 3 hours before the avalanche. It was cloudy and you couldn’t see the top of the corrie. I know we sound like a broken record- but cornices are large and prone to collapse.
Ski Patroller near the bottom of the debris. Blocks actually travelled much further down the hill. Glenshee Ski Area have this marked as ‘out of bounds’, partly because of the avalanche risk.
Here is the culprit. This ‘High Additional Load’ was the trigger. There are still plenty of cornices around.
Crown wall. Just over a metre at it’s highest. There are more cornices around at the top of these aspects.
The weakest layer, I’ve cleared it out so it’s obvious. Much harder layers above it, that could support a skier or walker but not that much more
Here the weak layer was found a bit closer to the surface about 30 metres away from the avalanche site. The black crystal card marks the top of the layer.
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