Avalanche: Brighton Perimeter

I was ascending the NE ridgeline and in line with the weather forecast, the NW winds were blowing hard. As I got to roughly 9700 ft, the snow on the Lee side of the ridge got noticeably stiffer, with rounding on many features. The angle kicks up at the very top and realizing this I made a kick turn to bail to the windward side - as I was approaching the crest, I was conscience of the fact that my weight would likely set off a wind slab and on literally my last step to the ridge it did just that - the snow dropped Out from under my feet and I awkwardly rode the slab (heel lifters up) roughly 20 ft down to where the angle mellows out and came to a halt standing up. Looking back up, it looked like the crown was about a foot at its deepest and 25-30' wide. In hindsight, ski crampons and sticking to the windward side would have been the safer option and had the terrain below/ adjacent been steeper and more connected, I wouldn't have chosen this route up at all. That said, I did and even though I went with my gut to bail to the ridge, it still happened and in bigger more exposed terrain it could have been a much bigger consequence. I consider this a mistake with thankfully, little consequence, but I will definitely learn from it.

in the photo, you can see my skin track coming in from the upper left