COMMENTS FROM THE GROUP THAT TRIGGERED THE SLIDE:

At Cardiff pass, after lengthy discussions about route choice, we decided to climb the west ridge of Toledo. On the way up we observed numerous natural and explosively triggered slab avalanches in the ivory flakes/Montreal hill area. Cardiac appeared to have a few debris piles as well but our view was obscured by clouds. Our intention was to ski the Toledo chute. We knew it had avalanched during the storm and all three agreed that the avalanche danger in the chute would be manageable. With my two partners watching from safe locations, I made a ski cut from south to north across the rollover. No result. There was only about 6 inches of snow on a firm bed surface. I dropped in from the trees on the left side and made two turns before it popped. As soon as I saw the snow start moving, I could hear my partners yelling a warning. I cut left into a safe zone and grabbed a tree, unfortunately dropping my poles in the process. The chute went wall to wall at the top but only a few inches deep. The avalanche itself was probably d1 r1-2 and petered out pretty quickly. I skied out to the bottom, unsuccessfully searching for my poles on the way down. My partners ended up opting for the sparse trees between Toledo chute and the bowl proper.

I'm feeling worse about dropping my poles than anything else at this point. We were all expecting the line to avalanche and, as a group, I think we managed that risk well. Sorry for the lack of pics, clouds were in and out at that point. If anybody finds my poles I'd love to get them back.

COMMENTS FROM ANDY:

We went up to do an AM lap on Toledo but didn't like the skinner up there- more evidence of deposition than we had hoped for and its hard to really not be in some kind of avalanche terrain if you approach up the bowl- so we spun and instead headed up Flagstaff. As we headed up the ridge 3 folks appeared on top of Toledo Chute. Not sure how they got there- perhaps from Flagstaff, but definitely not from the south approach- we had just come from there putting the track in part way and bailing and nobody had followed us. Anyway it seemed like a bold line for the conditions so we stopped to watch- I took video but the light is bad and its hard to see anything so won't even bother posting. They put in a couple of good ski cuts and then somebody dropped in as though he (she?) would ski it, but with a conservative approach to it he managed to ski right off to the side when the whole thing ripped. Good enough exit seemed like it was probably intentional. Again hard to tell details from across the way so guessing a bit on the dimensions, hardness, problem, etc. but it seemed like it went pretty much wall to wall, soft wind slab, perhaps 50 cm deep?, running 500'?, size D1.5-2?, starting zone in there must be around 40 degrees. After waiting a minute, the skier uneventfully skied down the track/debris. The remaining 2 skiers traversed over to Toledo Bowl and skied uneventfully. On our exit down the S ridge of Flagstaff I managed to pop out a wind slab that was only ~8" deep and ran ~75' downhill, but propagated ~100'.

Photo 1- Our tracks bailing out of Toledo Bowl

Photo 2- A look at Toledo before the skiers arrived at the top. Evidence of old slab avalanches on the lookers left side of Toledo Chute and below the cliff that separates the chute from the bowl.

Photo 3- The Chute after it slid- really flat light- hard to make out the crown.

Photo 4- The pocket I popped out on Flagstaff on our exit.