My partner and I acknowledged that the slope in question, dropping NE from the ridge, appeared wind loaded and was sufficiently steep to slide. As such, I chose a safe zone skier's right and behind a large rock, approximately 30 vertical feet down. Dropping in, nothing happened as I made my first turn, but as I made a second turn, to my right towards the safe zone, the slide was triggered. My guess is that the wind-loaded top layer broke and stepped down to the subsequent two layers below. The resulting multilayer hard slab propagated above, to the flatter ridgetop, as well as 30 feet skier's left and 10 feet skier's right. Vertically, the slab released was likely around 80'. Right and left boundaries of the slide path seemed dictated by terrain features: significant rock outcroppings. Debris traveled downhill at least 250 vertical feet, stopping as terrain flattened. Following the slide, further analysis suggested significant energy between the bed surface and failing layer. The slope was measured around 37 degrees. Other than the trigger, there was no human involvement. From the safe zone, I was able to safely watch the slide progress, as was my partner from the ridge top.

Forecaster Comments - Dec 30 Hard Slab over facets (with a skiff of surface hoar here and there) pulled back up to low angle - 29-33 degrees. Pencil + Hard slab failing on 4f facets. Pretty much the structure you see where affected by the 12/30 winds. Clear dirt layer within hard slab. Obvious wind loading.

Would have been a very nasty ride through boulders and trees. Pics taken 1/12, below.

Avalanche occurred just at the Patsy Marley shoulder into the mid-Wolverine basin. Wolverine in the background.

Easy to initiate longer running sluffs in the Jan 7 storm-turned-faceted snow (with yesterday's skiff of beautiful dendrites)