Sawatch

Snowpack

Triggered small hard slab in the Box Creek Cirque off of Mt Elbert. This fractured 3"-1.5' deep and 30", with me standing on the very edge where it was 3". This slide ran several hundred feet before triggering another slide about 8" deep. It continued down only to release another slab on the apron. This one was much larger, about 2' deep and 100' wide. This ran another 200' or so to the bottom of the cirque. The debris seemed to fan out a bit, was up to 5' deep, including several good sized blocks. When it broke I was moving off the slab, thinking it looked too much like a wind pillow for me. As I was almost off it, it broke 20' above me, but was quite easy for me to shuffle off. I briefly examined the largest crown on the apron, I felt it was possibly some sort of near surface faceting, or something of the sort. As there was certainly a big problem layer above any sort of crust.: Ran on East aspect 1200', atleast 100' at its widest. Thought it looked like deep sastrugi, but as I got closer I realized it wasn't and began looking for a new plan. This is about when it broke. Problems included complacency to big exposure, not thinking deep enough in the snowpack, and riding solo.