Headed for Lake Peak to see what we could ski. Lake Peak is always a bit tricky to ascend from White Pine, and today - with a foot of new that came in with some wind - we decided to at least initially not try to gain the west/north ridge to go for the summit with its plethora of steep, windloaded lines but instead just go up the lower angle north side some ways and ski down; there's a nice ramp that takes you up halfway up the peak (from the flats to the top) to the bottom of the steep upper section, skinning through soft snow (ie not wind scoured) in about the same depth as blanketed the rest of the range (ie the concept of wind-transport there wasn't yelling in our face).

We gained the small sub-ridge that splits the due north face from the NE face and looked down the bottom 400' of the NE face. We talked about the concept of it being cross-loaded, but being so low on the ridge and fairly well protected by rocks up higher we didn't think it would be "too" loaded (tho the small subridge was a little icy; we shoulda made more of a note of that). We pushed a few snowballs down and they created medium-sized sluffs, and we climbed up as high as we could on the ridge to be able to do a ski cut back over to the ridge before dropping the line; I hoped it was the sweet spot but it was lower (tho I didn't know that) but I wasn't able to cut lower safely, so I took that as good sign.

After my ski cut I dropped in and within a coupla seconds I caught a glimpse of cracking around my skis, and since the line was only 400' long ramping down to flats below I was able to just go straight down and angling off to the side of the fall line. My partner heard a loud crack as the "cornice" (relatively small at 3') broke/released and he yelled, but I didn't hear either.

The crown was 3' deep for a horizontal distance of just a few feet, and then as it angled down/to the right went gradually down to maybe only 8-10". As you can see in the photo, the debris was spread over a large area and we agreed wasn't deep enough for a burial. But big enough to get hurt/lose gear/get scared. And a good reminder that cross-loading happens well off peaks.

As observer Peter Donner likes to say: "An avalanche is a decision." We made some good decisions: don't try to assume the ridge and get exposed to the E facing steep lines to get to the ridge, don't try to ski from the potentially wind loaded, steeper peak top, use the low angle ramp to ascend, ski a less-committing lower 400 foot section with no obstacles and a long flattish runout, ski it fast with a rapid exit possibility. We made some bad decisions: underestimated the amount of cross loading, esp given the wind lip and scoured ridge, not ski cut the sweet spot, and since we couldn't ski cut it safely, then bail back over to the lower-angle north facing shot that harbored snow that was just as nice and not windloaded.