Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 30 m
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 20 cm
- Start Zone Aspect
- Northeast
- Avalanche Problem
- Wind Slab
- Start Zone Elevation
- 3078 m
Very high evidence of cross-loading within Cardiac Bowl. Although winds have mostly been coming from the North, cross-loading is greatly affecting the slopes on the north through northeast aspects. There are pockets of wind slab evident all over this northeastern slope of Mount Superior. My first turn after exiting the Western Cardiac Bowl, I felt myself collapse into the ground, immediately stopped, and saw that I triggered a small pocket of wind slab (the slab shown in the pictures and described above).
Below the cardiac bowl, the last convex rollover before hitting the basin had massive cracking and "whumphing" that really spooked my partner and I. The cracking appeared on the first turn on this slope and cracked all the way across that slope, over 100 feet wide. Luckily, the second skier did not trigger the slab to fail. We were not surprised to see the cracking and evidence of cross-loading, but it was nerve-wracking nonetheless. There should be caution while traveling on all aspects because these pockets of wind slab are quite unpredictable.