Avalanche: Cinder Chutes

Although Cinder Chutes had previously slid during this cycle as evident by the frozen chicken heads in the runout zone and the shallow new snow on top the right side was heavily loaded. My buddy skied center and did not touch the wind loaded snow right side. All was fine. I put a good hard ski cut in right to left. The wind slab quickly broke lose center to right and straight down the right nose about half way down. It was good I did not ski under that hang fire. Unrelated to this side we observer something quite disturbing earlier in the day. I dug a pit at 9400 on Knife Ridge. I dug about 4-5 feet deep and was unable to get any layers other last nights snow to fail at CT20. I then stuck my shovel behind my column and was able to get a clean failure with only moderate pressure on the MLK layer. I noticed some small surface hoar in the mix. Although there were quite a few stout layers in the snow pack including a 2 inch thick ice layer from the last rain event, and wet snow it seems to me with a few more feet of wet spring snow this sill exists the possibility of some very large slides that would take out trees and surely be unsurvivable.