Y1

Type: Backcountry or Sidecountry

The Y Chutes are a series of steep and fast-running avalanche paths dropping nearly 1,500 vertical feet from treeline down into a significant natural terrain trap in the West Fork of Gavilan Creek—there are no "islands of safety" or exit routes once you drop in to any of these chutes. Safely riding these lines requires intimate knowledge of the snowpack, ability to continuously assess and evaluate conditions, and willingness take and balance the always-present risks with the adventurous experience of riding these harrowing lines.

Access to the ridge above these chutes is tricky with no established route. The easiest is to skin up the Gavilan Trail #60 to the ridge and make the climb to the summit of the unnamed peak 11,849', then continue south down the ridge past the tops of Y3 and the Y2 Trib to a small sub-peak above Y2. A short ways farther above the next gully in line, the ridge almost flattens out, and this is the top of Y1.

This is the shortest of the Y Chutes, and often overlooked by skiers scouting lines from afar. Due to it's slightly more easterly aspect and the sheltering sub-ridge to the south, this one often holds softer snow when the more obvious and bigger chutes have started to melt out. There are multiple entrances to this chute—each is composed of openings through the trees that funnel into a drainage gully a couple hundred feet down. Once in the gully, the line opens up as a natural halfpipe, contouring down and around a bend before flowing into Y2 near the bottom of the canyon.