Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 9 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow/Old Snow Interface
- Trigger Type
- Skier
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 28 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Unintentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- North
- Avalanche Problem
- New Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2957 m
Skinned up Scotty's around 5:15pm. Noted very poor bonding of the new snow on the way up, but not much of a slab, and no cracks or collapsing. Final kick turns of the skinner were very tricky, pushing off chunks of unconsolidated storm snow on the underlying ice crust.
Decided hazard was manageable and to drop the steep skiers left tree shot off the ridge.
Put in a ski cut, fully ready and expecting to trigger a heavy slough, but instead had two cracks shoot out the full width of the rollover and immediately pop the whole face out, with surprising energy. Ran about 40ish feet into the tighter trees.
If I wasn't set up for the ski cut, and instead was caught by surprise, this would have absolutely taken me for a ride and strained me through the tight trees and could have buried me. Spooky.