Triggered a D1 soft slab in the West Porter gully at about 8200 feet, caught, carried, partially buried. Think it failed on new snow old snow interface but could have been the Christmas crust. Crown was about 2 feet, avalanche was about 20 feet wide ran about 30 feet.
Seen this exact avalanche natural a few times over the years, always thought it could be a problem. Calling it a soft slab, but it was quite windy yesterday while I was out so it was probably wind affected. Terrain trap, steep gulley side wall, West Porter is generally north, but this feature is south east. Line was skiers left on the main run starting at about 8700 mid slope, down the open field north aspect, into the tree line next to the gully then dropping into the gully for a few turns, cutting uphill left on to the southeast gully wall to check my speed before entering the well tracked snow below.
Moving pause to evaluate the best line, starting to turn as the slope gave way, sat down in the moving snow, some flowed over me, skis pointed down hill, arms out to the side for a paddle while gripping poles, came to a stop with my skis cemented into the debris pile. Dug down to my bindings released the skis, stood up in the totally supportable debris, dug my skis out, put them on, no lost gear, skied down to the uptrack, for a few more runs. Had considered centerpunching the gully from my 8700 foot start but it has a steep rollover at 8400 foot elevation with about 10 times more snow than the small slab I triggered and I thought it might go and would be difficult to manage.
While skinning up after my little escapade, watched a solo rider (think he was a split boarder) trigger the north facing headwall while climbing a previously set skinner into In Between. Checked he was OK, snapped some photos, submitted those separately.
