Avalanche: West Monitor

Yeah I know same place different day. Actually triggered two seperate avalanches in West Monitor today, much larger and hair triggered than the rest of the slides i,ve seen this year. First slide was a bit of a suprise, with no cornice to kick could only get a small chunk of snow about the size of a softball to roll down the hill rolled about 100ft down the slope then fractured out a slide 10" deep and about 75ft wide, ran quite aways out onto the flats. Suprised it took only a small chunk of snow that weighed next to nothing to initiate the slide. Pics of the powder cloud, crown and debris pile.

Second slide was quite a bit larger 175ft wide 2ft deep at the deepest part of the crown, also ran way out on to the flats and created a large powder cloud. Initiated this slide from a small cornice drop onto a 30degree slope above a rock band. Felt a large collapse and the whole slope spider webbed into large chunks of hard slab, couldn't tell if it made it over the rockband until we saw the large powder cloud and the debris pile at the bottom. Both avalanches slid on facets below the rain crust wich was very fragile on this slope. the larger slide had obvious wind loading and wind slab. The first slide was a bit more interesting from the fact that it pulled out quite aways down the slope where it was not as likely to be wind loaded, with a small snow ball triggering it. The time of messing around in the facets has come and gone, seems like it doesn't take much weight now to trigger a slab avalanche with serious consiquences.

Looks like clouds in the sky, but it actually the powder cloud from the larger slide, and some hammered trees