Avalanche: Millville Peak

We picked a gorgeous day to go riding today up in the Providence Canyon area. Plenty of sunshine and some great snow up high. We made one run off of Millville Peak and were surprised by the quality of the snow. We found 3-4 new inches of snow from yesterdays storm sitting on top of a bit of a wind/sun crust (on certain aspects) from earlier in the week. In shadier aspects and off the ridge the crust disappeared and nice pow was plentiful. On the second run down the same zone (at about 9200 ft and on a northeast facing slope) I made a fairly hard heel edge carve just a few turns down off the ridge and kicked loose a small wind slab. Initially I thought it was just slough but as I glanced back I noticed it was a slab and it was picking up some steam. I pointed it and got off to the side to a safe zone and watched as it rolled down the middle of the line we were about to ride. The slab was shallow, probably only 4” deep but was probably 50’ wide at the widest section. It traveled around 600 vertical feet down the mountain and plowed through some trees and piled up nicely (maybe 4’ deep at it’s deepest). Probably wouldn’t have been enough to fully bury a person but would have made for a scary ride down.