Northern San Juan

Snowpack

our group of 5 was skinning up the glade in Sam's Run maybe a few hundred feet looker's right off the main drainage there. About 500' vertical into the skin the person breaking trail had a collapse. The crown was about 30-40' above where he was. It was about 3' deep (basically to the ground) and went from 2 Aspen trees that were about 20 feet apart. The main part of the avy was only about 30' wide. The skier breaking trail got carried about 20 feet before getting slammed into some trees where he hung on to some branches. A person about 10 feet behind went for a ride about 100' downward but wasn't buried. The make up of the slide was primarily blocks of soft slab which crumbled on the way down. I'm estimating from the crown to the bottom of the debris field was a total of 200-300'. Definitely some poor decision making and a lack of communication on our part which led to this. The person breaking trail wasn't relaying back all the "whompfffffsssss" he was causing. From where the skier who triggered the avy there was a fracture line that propagated about 30' to the side of the avy path to right under my feet. The surface of the snow had a visible fracture about 4" wide but it never gave way.