Dirty Slab

Our party toured up Paola Ridge today to 6500' under intermittent snow squalls with bouts of sunshine. 

• Temps hovered around freezing with fresh snowfall capping moist grains up to ~6500' (up to 6" of recent snow from last night)
• Moderate gusts were present but little snow transfer occurring
• Experienced our first collapse at 6200' on an E facing ridgeline.
• Experienced a much larger collapse at 6400', which remotely triggered a D2, soft slab avalanche just below us on a N aspect
• The fracture line spanned 300'+, ran 150' and deposited debris up to 5' deep
• Failure plane was small grain, near-surface facets resting atop the early March rain crust (easy boot pen on the bed surface)