A wet avalanche or more like a flood/landslide/wet avalanche caused by rapid melt and a canal failure. Might be considered a shush avalanche I guess, as it occurred on a very low angle slope, < 20°. We think the canal was dammed by snow or ice allowing for pounding of the snow melt. It was a destructive event, and in a couple spots it looked like flood water pushed a large amount of saturated snow, slush and woody debris down-slope into structures and across the highway....quite a pile of chunky avalanche debris. Super saturated soils also failed and crossed the road in a few places to the south of where these photos were taken.

In addition to the damage cause by this event, we noticed that the extremely heavy snowfall in the area had collapsed several structures. Birch and Mink Creeks are running high and fast.