Avalanche: Butler Basin

Touchy in the Butler drainage today with lots of naturals of the storm snow slab which does not seem well bonded to layers below. We did not see any evidence of the storm slab stepping down into other layers when it went.

Wandering up the ridge with the thought of skiing White Snake. We had pushed off a smaller cornice earlier on the ridge walk on a more northeasterly aspect and it had not broken out the new snow slab (it seemed better bonded than at lower elevations at least on that aspect). A slide of the new snow had already naturaled lower down the center of Butler Basin because of a steep roll. I felt like I was far back from the cornice as we climbed up. My partner had moved even further away as we got above Butler Basin and just as I thought to do the same, a crack appeared between my skis as a large cornice broke off. I rolled off the block that was falling onto the stable edge and watched the big blocks of the cornice pull out the new snow slab a couple hundred feet wide. It ran down the slope into the part of the run that had already naturaled and came to rest where the angle slacked off. We didn't see any evidence of anyone being down in the run and watched the slide come to rest.

Seem to remember some saying about how you can never be too far away from a cornice...lesson relearned.