Avalanche: Days Fork

Skied 1 run in Day's Draw, and did not find any slab formation there, or on the skin track back up. Snow was not bonded well to the bed surface, but all that we were able to produce in the Draw were slow moving sluffs. For our second lap, we headed over to a steeper, more prominent sub peak on the Reed and Benson ridgeline. Before setting a skin track on this new face, we agreed that there would be some heavy sluff possible, and that we should begin the skin track from a safe zone, incase our extra weight loaded the slope enough to produce any snow movement. I began the skin track, and several steps in it broke at my feet. I watched this initial pocket release 20' wide by 12'' deep and it ran for 50 feet. Initially unseen, the slide propagated across the slope and up the slope, which extended the slide by another hundred feet or so, maintaining a fairly constant 12'' depth. This section of the slide ran much further than the initial pocket, as the slope where it ran was much more continuous with no flat areas to lose momentum (unlike the area where my skin track, and subsequent initial release, began). After watching the slide run and taking a few photos, my ski partners and I turned around and skied lower angle, more sheltered terrain. We discussed the slide, and figured that the prominence and relative exposure of the slope where the slide began lent itself to forming more of a slab from the SW wind we experienced the night before. It was a great reminder that a slight change in aspect and elevation can make for drastically different conditions.