Avalanche mountain (didn't get pic while it was sliding)

[Okanagan]

If I'm going to mention something as oddball as an avalanche I should have put it in a thread to start with rather than shoutbox!

The avalanche happened on Lady Peak in southern B.C., pic of it below though I did not take this photo.  There was considerably more snow on the peak yesterday than in the photo so that it was smooth white all over.



The avalanche broke loose just below the ridge top in a section several hundred yards wide, and slid down toward the camera position with amazing quickness.  The avalanche stopped in the canyon between the far white peak in the photo and the foreground ridge.  I tried to mark the width of the slide face but photobucket won't let me edit this pic for some reason, maybe because I swiped it from the internet. 

My wife and I were off to the left of the photo, across the valley.   We were driving south admiring the mountain peaks toward the southeast when we both noticed a LOT of snow suddenly churned into the air and trailing out in the wind from just below the ridge top.  The wind had been whipping up snow on the peaks all day but this was a LOT of snow and fast moving.  As we watched the tendrils of wind whipped snow became opaque white clouds jetting up 90 degrees to the slope of the mountain face, while the base of the expanding snow geyser zoomed down the slope at high speed.  Avalanche!  Billows of snow shot up in the air so that we never did see much of the moving snow face.   Google earth indicates that we were 8 miles from the peak.   Driving, no good place to stop and the good part was over too soon to get much of a photo.  Clear deep blue sky.  The smooth face of the mountain had a wide rough scar down it after the wind blew away the snow billows.

Width of the avalanche:  using the foreground ridge as a measure, the avalanche face went from above the bump near the left end of the ridge across to the second saddle which is just below dead center of the photo.  Nobody on the face of the mountain could have outrun it.  Wife thought that the snow raced from ridge to bottom of the canyon in no more than 30 seconds and more likely 20 or 25.  The face is steeper than it looks when you get a side view of it rather than straight on.  The snow was all but falling. 

Privilege to get to see it.

Photo below of an avalanche on a different slope of Lady Peak taken by somebody else.  There was a LOT more snow on the mountain yesterday than there is in this pic.
 

[Dale]

quite interesting...  what became of the small shack in the 2nd photo?...  looks like it may have been right in the path of the snow...

[Okanagan]

Good eye!  I've no idea what happened to the shack. 

I didn't take the photo but it is listed as a photo of Lady Peak and I posted it because it shows the billowing snow of an avalanche.   After I posted it I noticed what looks like a stone wall and didn't even notice the shack till you mentioned it.  Therefore I'd guess that it is from the Alps rather than of Lady Peak.  There is one angle at which Lady Peak looks just like the photo, and the sharp spire to the left of the main mountain mass is so like Lady that now I am on a quest to find out.   Rock walls and shacks on high mountains are European and Asian but I have never seen them on any mountain in Canada.  I've seen short low rock walls on some US mountains where climbers have made a windbreak to protect their tent.

[Yotehntr]

That is to wild, I figured it didn't last to long.  LOL I thought the same thing about the shack then saw Dale's post. 

[Okanagan]

This afternoon on a hill a mile from my house I was surprised to see Lady Peak out on the horizon, about the same perspective as the first photo in this thread.  I'd never noticed that we could see it from around here.   Today it has a wide black bare rock section from the skyline ridge top way down the mountain side.  Two days ago that avalanche section looked like scarred snow surface.  By today, the third day of warm sunshine on a southwest face, the small amount of snow left after the avalanche has melted and left bare rock on that section.  Google earth says that it is 34 miles from here to Lady peak straight through the air.

[JohnP]

Avalanche, no big deal common occurance out here.

[KySongDog]

If I'm going to mention something as oddball as an avalanche ..........

Avalanche or not, you sure get to roam around in some beautiful country.   I'm so envious.   

[Okanagan]

If I'm going to mention something as oddball as an avalanche ..........

Avalanche or not, you sure get to roam around in some beautiful country.   I'm so envious.   

Well, if you could wander out this way we could roam for a day or three.     Or I could point you to some fine country, but it is really big.  Lots of driving.  But locally we could be above timberline on Mt. Baker in 90 minutes, two hours to Hell's Gate in the Fraser Canyon gorge between big tall mountains all the way, an hour to Harrison Lake and we could wander logging roads there passing waterfalls and mountains all day.  People from here who go to Switzerland say things like, "Yes, the Alps are nice but... "   

Wife likes to walk on the ferry to Vancouver Island, take the bus into the classy downtown harbor area of Victoria, shop and snack all day and then come home on the ferry.  Long day but a great date, especially if you splurge and take her to High Tea at the ivy covered Empress Hotel.

[FinsnFur]

Wow, that woulda been quite a sight. But then again most of the pics you post of your part of the country ARE quite a sight

[Hawks Feather]

Avalanche, no big deal common occurance out here.

John, you need to worry more about the avalanche of illegals than you do snow.

Jerry