Avalanche: Hatcher Pass

This slab was triggered after the rider jumped the rock adjacent to crown, and thumped (landed) on slope. We believe this was a small soft slab avalanche. Small soft slab avalanches are unlikely as a widespread problem, but will be possible in very isolated locations. We identified buried, weak, old wind formed slabs under the Feb 2-3 snow sitting on weak faceted snow, which are the likely culprit. We saw some of these fail during and just after the last storm, example: Skyscraper, Liam's Run, NE, 4000' and Rae Wallace apron NW, 4000'. The small size and softness of these slabs will resemble loose dry avalanches in every aspect other than the crown and small propagation, as the slabs are barely cohesive enough to act as slabs. With hundreds of tracks in very concentrated areas over the last 4 days, this is one of two human triggered slab avalanche we are aware of at this time, and in our opinion this is a pertinent negative for heightened slab avalanche danger. Details on the other small slab are yet to be confirmed.