Quick report
- Collapsing
- specific
We remote triggered a sizable slide while skinning near the top of the ridge early this morning. It ran to the ground and sent debris and a powder cloud well into the valley floor. It failed on a west facing slope at apx 7600'. Very similar to the forecast discussion, we were mostly skinning in a couple inches of new storm snow on top of a very firm crust and thin overall snowpack (sagebrush sticking out). As we neared the top of the ridge we traversed out to the south-east and noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of new snow, and general "slabbiness" which occurred within a few steps. We then felt a small collapse followed immediately by a larger collapse and the avalanche which broke about 50 feet below where we were standing. One of the starkest takeaways was the incredibly short spatial distance in which the snowpack went from feeling "safe" to not at all safe. We experienced no collapsing, cracking, or other signs of instability until we were within yards of where we triggered the slide. We would have gone down and gotten better observations (and pictures) of the crown, but did not feel like any of the approaches were totally safe from where we were standing.