Matier NW face

Localised crossloading on Matier NW face. Size 1.5 accidentally released wind slab, 1 in group caught but uninjured and not buried.

Very localised and predominantly small wind slabs on NW face. Incident involved a larger slab. Observed the hazard on the approach and thought the slabs were small enough to avoid during the approach and descent. Also did not give enough weight to warning signs from small slab failure on kick turns. During boot pack visibility worsened and with hindsight made the error of continuing, but unable to clearly see where to avoid the slabs. Bed surface was another wind slab. The NW face currently has a patchwork of fresh and buried wind slabs. N/NE winds during the day of the incident, crossloaded slope and buried older wind slabs. Human factors at play: objective driven and let's be honest some weekend warrior syndrome.

More generally we observed a lot of wind slabs and wind affected snow on NW through NE aspects in alpine areas over the weekend; from 2000+ metres elevation. The majority of this was localised, easy to observe and avoid with good visibility, but the hazard is perhaps more widespread than expected. Observed point release sluffing on steep W and NW aspects; in the basin east of vantage peak one estimated to have run to size 1/1.5. Also observed numerous localised pockets of c.5-10cm unconsolidated snow from the last storm on a wide range of elevations (1600-2400) and aspects from W, N and E. Observations of these unconsolidated pockets were typically on uphill skin tracks and sub 30 degrees slopes but there were exceptions to this. Thought: could this be an issue if it doesn't bond before the next phase of loading?