Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 46 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow/Old Snow Interface
- Trigger Type
- Natural
- Vertical Fall
- 122 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 30 cm
- Start Zone Aspect
- Northwest
- Avalanche Problem
- Wind Slab
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2591 m
Natural avalanche on the new/old snow interface partway down the Banana Chute. The summit of Allen Peak is at 9465ft, but this slide occurred around 8500ft or so, below where we expected to find as much wind effect. Not sure of the timing (low visibility made it impossible to view this on our way up), so sometime before approx.1500 today. Didn't get up close as stability required careful management and safe zones were not plentiful. Crown was 12" max, but probably average 6 to 8". Despite the relatively shallow depth of snow that released, it ran quite some distance down the gully, leaving a pretty sizable soft debris pile perhaps 400ft below in the center of the gully. Failure on the new/old interface due to wind loading was consistent with other small hard slabs we released. Photo is of the base of the debris. Apologies for the weird lighting; was attempting to get enough contrast in the photo to be able to identify the debris on the snow surface.