Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Myself and another skiier had skinned 2/3 of the way up the major path seen from the road. We had been noticing some minor collasping and a few pinwheels begining to roll. A single skiier skinned up behind us and eventually passed us on the up. He began to make traverses out into the steeper slope (35 degrees) just below the upper bench. The two of us skiing together traversed to a tree island and had begun to speak about the situation. As the skier above us began to leave his tree island we noticed the slope out in front of us pulling out. After a few seconds it became clear that the slide had propagated a large distance (900+ft)to the skiers right. It ran approx. 900-1000ft to a lower bench. The crown was aprox. 18in to 2ft on skiers left and maybe a foot as it moved down the ridge. Egress was followed down the debris and then down a low angle slope back to Crystal Lake. R3-D2.5 in our hasty opinion.