SZ 2 Persistant slab on the Dome Headwall Direct

<p>We skied the Dome Headwall Direct run in open trees where we found awesome powder and good snow stability. On steep convex rolls, we had to stomp very hard to get any sort of cracking. We traversed left across the flat spot in the middle of the run to reach the pillow lines we had scoped. As we drop in at around 1600m, we suddenly notice more cracking and pillows wanting to release. The first skier rides down a safer line in open trees further away from the cliffs. He triggers a size 1 on his first turn, stops on a safety island and a size 2 releases right below him. The second skier rode down to reach the safety island and triggers another size 1 that propagated to where the previous slide had started. The January 29th surface hoar was extremely reactive on that windless NE aspect between 1400m and 1600m. We didn’t expect that kind of sliding on terrain that wasn’t especially steep (~30°). </p>

Terrain Ridden

Convex slopes, Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy.