Avalanche: Meadows

Went to Meadows for a walk mostly. Had been there yesterday (12/30) enjoying some fun low angle turns. Went back intending to do the same on a sunny last day of the year, but plans changed. Walked the ridge out towards Football Field to possibly consider skiing the low angle skier's left side of FF. Got one big collapse on the way out. Being alone, this canceled any intention of skiing FF. Dug a couple of hand pits after that and found rotten facets1.5-2' down just off the ridge. Walked a little farther and got a bigger collapse where I found I had remotely triggered this slide. Walked down off the ridge to see details. Slide happened on the more benign skier's left side of FF. This side maxes out at maybe 30-31 degrees, which is where the crown was. Found stress cracks leading up to about a 2.5' crown. I didn't investigate the bed surface but could safely assume it slid on our PWL of facets. It was a hard slab that ran about 500' vert down the skier's left side of FF and appeared to stop where slope angle mellows out before going into the choke. Not being sure if this triggered something lower that could potentially hit the summer trail, I called Solitude snow safety to alert them. They called me back saying it did not trigger anything below.

This is an area I have skied frequently for over 20yrs and am very familiar with. Football Field is the top of a slide path and although very infrequent, I know it does slide. I have only seen this area slide once before though in my 20+ years of skiing there. Many consider Meadows a safe area to ski when avi danger is elevated. I witnessed many steeper lines that were skied yesterday without incident. Slope angle where this slide fractured being around 30 degrees is very telling of our current snowpack. Be careful out there!