The avalanche happened and went several miles down the mountain on February 14th 2019. Luckily there was so much snow the road wasn't open so it is likely no one died in this avalanche because of this. When I reached the base of the Avalanche which is sort of almost straight up the mountain from Bunny Flats and slightly to the left. (Basically, follow the main path up to the Saddle to the left and then keep on going up following the main Snow shoe tracks. I even saw one or two ladies that were light enough in their boots to walk all the way there without even snow shoes just in knee high boots if they were really careful how they walked on the snow shoe beaten down snow from people going up there today. Skiing down was okay too but I tried as much as possible to stay out of other people's tracks simply because I didn't want to go that fast. I was rewarded for this by not falling down even once on my way down back to the car.
While we were there someone from the Forest Service took a shovel and shoveled really nice snow steps in the 15 feet high snow at the end of the road so skiers and snowboarders and snowshoers could actually get up on top of the 15 to 20 foot drifts at the end of the road there at Bunny Flat.
My friend was already working on the steps but realized when he saw the forest service guy with a shovel that he should let them do it as they are actually getting paid to do this.
My friend and his girlfriend made the first ascent with their skis yesterday when the road opened up. I realized yesterday that it was safe enough to go up but not safe enough for me at 70 to come back down. So, I didn't go up until today. I lent my snowshoes to a friend because he didn't have skins for his cross country skis and he was slipping back a lot. So, I took the snow shoes I had strapped to my back for emergencies and gave them to my friend for the day. My mountaineering skis have riffles in the center with about 1 foot or more of normal ski on the front tips and on the tail of the skis. But, the tail kept icing up and I was having trouble clearing the skis. So, I asked my friend's girlfriend if she had any wax to stop the snow from sticking on the tail of my skis and she said yes. She said only take one ski off at a time so you don't disappear because it is so deep here and she was right. So, I only took one ski off and kept one on at all times for safety. The skis were really slick after that but still went uphill pretty good.
One tip though, if you are using wax on skis that have riffles to allow you to walk up hills of snow be sure when you use wax to ONLY go from the front tip to the tail when going over the riffles. Otherwise you can clog the riffles with wax and you won't be able to walk uphill anymore. or it will greatly lessen your ability to walk uphill in the snow.
She and my friend had artificial skins. I watched some people walk up 35% angles with skis on snow without slipping back with some artificial skins by the way while I was walking up towards the Class 4 Avalanche. So, some of the artificial skins are obviously quite remarkable at this point.
When I reached the base of the Avalanche there was a mound of snow maybe 25 feet high that had brought down trees along the way until it had stopped (likely because of the trees in the forest basically). But, 5 feet of new snow had come down on it this week so it looked very different than the pictures you see of when it first happened.
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