In an attempt to decrease my risk on my last run I skied skiers left of Sound of Music. I had been skiing big lines all day however they were mostly on snow pack that gets hit by Canyons traffic. Recently I have been skiing skiers left of Sound of Music because most ski the big open line of Sound of Music which seems to always have tracks now. So this line rarely gets skied. The slide occurred about 2 turns off the ridgeline. When it broke loose I was pretty sure the staunch wall was right in front of me as I saw a wave of snow in front of me but after I passed the stanch wall the lower snow below must have broken loose as well because that was only the beginning. Luckily the layer below the new snow was a hard slab that did not move. After riding over 200 feet and almost hooking a small Aspen at the very top (which in hind sight maybe I should have tried to grab) I finally stopped face up. Although I was fully covered with debris I was able to use my hand to continually keep the snow out of my mouth. The snow was soft enough I was able to dig myself out. I had to drop a pole at the last moment to protect my mouth and try to keep snow free around my upper body but with only one swath with my shoever I hit my poll. As usual I always keep trees in mind and luckily I was aware of the trees up top and chose to stay left of the aspens. Afterwards I skinned up to check out the weak layer. Thesnow failed on top a thin hard slab about 3 inches thick which layed above a melt freeze layer.