Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 30 m
- Weak Layer
- Density Change
- Trigger Type
- Natural
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 15 cm
- Start Zone Aspect
- North
- Avalanche Problem
- New Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2530 m
Our party of 2 skied the Dolphin today. We started early and were correct in our assumption that the forecast would be moderate danger on mid elevation North facing aspects. We skinned up from Sawmill traversing to Little Willow. At the base of the Dolphin run, we discussed how to proceed. We decided on going up through trees to the ridge as it was safer plus it would preserve the powder for our run. Skinning up, we didn’t see any red flags, but could hear the wind howling the higher we went. We felt how strong the gusts were as we got to the ridge and we noted a small slide. This slide had a crown of 6 inches, 30 ft wide, sliding about 30 ft down. We traversed past it to some trees to transition and noted some cracking and collapsing as we traveled. Once we reached the rollover to the steeper terrain, we saw another bigger slide at the top of the main gully we were planning to ski. The second larger avalanche also had a 6 inch crown and was about a 100 ft wide. We discussed a way down and skied some of the avalanche debris and the side of the gully hoping that lower down would be some untracked snow. We soon realized that the gully had slid down about 2000 feet top to bottom. When we got to the base of the run, we also saw that it covered our tracks and realized that the slide must have happened while we were skiing up. We could have triggered it remotely or it happened naturally as the wind gusts were very strong at the ridge.