It's not too often you get to geek out and investigate a deep slab avalanche late in June. Clearly visible from upper elevations on the north side of LCC, this large slide obviously caught our eye. My good friend and Uinta colleague Ted Scroggin made the trip down from Evanston, joining me on my annual Wasatch ski holiday and we took a stroll up Maybird to take a look.

Triggered by a large piece of rock peeling off the cliffs, the snowpack received a sudden nuclearesque impact and would have been nearly impossible for a person to initiate a slide of this magnitude.

This was an impressive slide and both Ted and I were interested to see if the MLK raincrust was a player. We dug around in several portions of the crown and interestingly enough, were able to identify the crust still quite visible near the bed surface. While no one was present to witness the slide, we suspect the combination of water pooling on the slick crust, combined with the perfect timing of a ginonormous trigger was the culprit behind this unusual avalanche. Of interesting note- a similar event occurred in May 2006 above Cecret Lake.... a large rockfall peeling off Sugarloaf Peak was the trigger in that event.

This slide was packin' heat, jumping over a well defined stauchwall, running well into low angle terrain.