Avalanche: Little Water Peak

On top Little Water at 1:45 the front had passed and the sun was out. I was skinning about 15 feet from the end of the cornice which had just built over the last week probably during the wind event on Wednesday when I notice a crack on the wrong size of my skis which ran quite a long way up and down. I was really surprised because last week there was no cornice up there so I was sure I was well over land. There was a wind slab about 4 inches thick which I was able to easily cut out with my pole and pick up. The slab was 1 finger hard. It weighted no more than 5 or 10 pounds. I threw it over the cornice so it would land just at the base of the cornice. The slope failed instantly. It was about 5 inches thick, 200 feet wide and ran to the base. The staunch wall was about 200 feet down slope but was easily peeled away by the avalanche. The debris went through the small trees in the middle of the slope and could have easily caused an injury. The debris pile was to small to bury anyone. There was some hang fire dead center off the peak. I ski cut the remaining hang fire right to left to end on up on the bed surface of the previous slide and was able to also get that snow to fail. The slab was a little thicker and about 50 feet wide. It ran in decent sized chunks to near the base.