Observation: Summit

Remotely triggered a small (~50 feet wide, crown height 8-12″) slide on 30-35
degree southwest facing slope on Tenderfoot ridge today. Elevation 3,000′.
While ascending a rollover on the ridge the snowpack settled loudly and a pocket
ripped out, running to the flats above Tenderfoot Creek below. Cracks extended
from the ridge out to and above the crown, leaving hang fire that didn’t
release.

Weather:
Mostly cloudy in the morning, became overcast and greybird by late morning.
Temp at the lake was ~20, noticeably warmer up higher.

Signs of instability:
Recent Avalanches – Nothing of significance in the past several days. In
addition to our slide today, once we were back on the lake we saw that another
group had kicked off a larger slab on a north-facing gully on Tenderfoot, same
elevation. That slide appeared to have triggered a sympathetic slightly above
the gully. Hard to estimate crown height on that one since we were far below,
but looked like it slid on the crust layer so probably 8-12″.
Collapsing – Yup. Once we got up to ~3,000′ we heard lots of settling on the
ridge.
Cracking: Not until the slide.

Snowpack: Soft wind slabs on top of the storm snow from this week, on top of
rain crust, some melt-freeze thrown in there, and facets to round out the pack
(no pun intended). Our HS is about 12-18″ below treeline, 18-24″ above
treeline, wind-loaded pockets deeper. Saw evidence of recent wind loading on
most aspects off the ridge. The north shots looked cross loaded in the gullies.
South was clearly loaded in the starting zones. The west line (which we skied
out) had just enough loading to make it fun, supportable skiing.