Avalanche on Mt. Brynteson

there it is, you can see a horizontal, white line left of center low on the mountain but above the willows- that's the crown face left by the avalanche two Sundays ago on January 10-  I was on my way down from a very fun very cold solo on the cliffs above, when I cavalierly began plunge-stepping down the convex face of a mid-mountain cornice created in a lee-slope deposition zone...

it was maybe 300' x 60' x 16" with me on top of the slab treadmilling the whole raft underneath me (fortunately i had been facing inwards with cobras drawn)-  the trigger made such a a gentle, audible, beautiful, gradual, resonating

                                                               whompf!...

noise, like a long row of playing cards going down underneath the floor-  i instinctively pedalled upwards as the horizontal fracture shot propagated before my very eyes and i now found myself climbing on a moving plane of snow-   i don't know how far i slid along with the mass trying to mantle onto the top of its crown-- when it came to rest after a short amount of slding, i was lucky to be perched on an unbroken plate of snow- probably a good thing i kept climbing up through the downward motion-  the ensuing rush was well worth the consternation of those few seconds-  mark, this avalanche ranked next to nothing by Chugach or Alaska Range standards, but still, this occasion marks my first true avalanche experience on the Sewie Peninsula, and was certainly sufficient to increase the heartbeat a bit...

the event over-shadowed the other highlight of the day, an enjoyable highball / solo type thing, a fun fun job of climbing on the quartzite arete visible in the rear of the photo- call the line i did M-3 with a picturesque top-out onto the north summit of Brynteson, done in extraordinarily cold conditions, sub-zero with stiff winds out of the north- moss sticks, stemming, overhangs, cams, surprisingly good climbing for a big blop of CHOSS....



here's John Brynteson, one of the 3 Lucky Swedes