i intentionally triggered 1 slab with some unintentional consequences: while skiing the ridge and ski cutting the north aspects that did not show signs of previous activity we stopped prior to the last ski cut of the day. previous ski cuts on the north aspects were non-reactive. not so on the last one, i cut the slope (approx 35 degrees) and it broke above me to within 2-3 feet of my partner, back onto a 25 degree slope. i saw the break on the side but was not able ski off. at this point it went from a "hey look at that cool slide i started" situation to a slow, 50' ride on the bed surface. most of the snow went past me, i stopped in a pile of soft snow on the uphill side of some trees. clicked out of my binders to stand up and realized i had never even let go of my poles. one ski was buried under about 2' of snow and i was never below any snow, it all went around me. nowhere close to a burial situation. i did leave some gouge marks on the bed surface. i saw the tree coming but was moving slow enough that it was not a concern and there was not enough snow left to bury me. my partner watching me agreed. the stats: 12" deep, 75 wide steeping out to 100' wide lower down, ran 250 vertical, 8800' elevation ride was 50 vertical feet and slow enough as not to be too worried about it. the culprit was buried surface hoar , imagine that! we had skied steeper slopes during the day, although all had has some previous activity as indicated by old debris. the mistake was not checking for the buried hoar as we had been during all day and assuming that since we had ski cut steeper slopes without debris that this one was not a big deal. this demonstrates the pockety nature of the surface hoar. the hangfire was very reactive. column tests on the crown were very reactive, clean q1 shears on the surface hoar.. to qoute tom kimbrough "you gotta have a close call every now and then to keep ya on your toes" 1 collapse while walking the butler/mill a ridge some wind with minor loading in the afternoon 0.5" new snow during the day