Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 24 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow/Old Snow Interface
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 46 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- Southeast
- Avalanche Problem
- Wind Slab
- Start Zone Elevation
- 3292 m
You could say we were looking for this danger and we found it. While that's not totally ture, we did aim for exactly where the wewind slab hazard was most likely. We were an experienced group and managed the hazard accordingly. We dropped into turkey chute around 8:45 as the clouds were breaking. Two skiers skied the gut. The third skier skied a bit farther to skiers right on the more loaded south east face. We skied one at a time from safe spot to safe spot. As the 3rd skier(me) made it about 500 ft down the ridge the slope spiderwebbed under him. He skied off to skiers left out of harm's way. The slope broke above and below and continued to propagate crownlines down the chute depositing snow part way down the upper apron about 1000 vertical feet below.
During the same time another party of 3 had skied down the South ridge a ways and then dropped in to the south face. They triggered what looked to be a similar size (maybe a bit bigger) slide off the ridge that also ran in the the upper apron.
The slide broke on the old crust and had a good bit of energy. With more snow I would expect this interface to continue to be a problem.
Sorry no pics.