We had seen many natural and human triggered avalanches throught out the day. Most of them being the norm of small soft slabs faili

The second slide we started was much more of a shock. After dropping a cornice while on belay into the main face of little water peak showed no results, Interesting. We then skied down the NW ridge of Little Water peak. The 1rst person down the ridge about a hundred yards stopped, then I skied down the ridge to him. On my final turn my partner heard a large wump. The 3rd skier in our party skied down to us and once he stopped, Another large wump and the whole slope below collapsed and actually broke about 2 feet above me on the 26 degree ridge! The slide was around 250-300 feet wide and varied from 8-35 inches deep. The deep area of the slab was just up the ridge from us and in an obviously drifted spot. The slide ran right next to some ski tracks that were made the previous day.

This was a good wake up call to how spatially variable this weak layer can be.