We had skied the lower angled, different-aspects Big Water shot, the trees in Soldier, and off Soldier Peak and were on the ridge ascending the shoulder of the main Soldier shot when we got shooting cracks that went off the ridge and triggered this slide. It also sympathetically released an adjacent slide to skier's right (down the ridge) at a rollover. Not a devastating slide with little debris piled up, but it would have been a nasty ride through tight trees.

As everyone knows, the morning saw some super high PI rates so there was a lot of load added quickly.....but the crown was 2 feet deep! So this was definitely the straw on the proverbial camel. For sure the N faces were getting wind-loaded, but not 2' worth?

Notably, the snow did not feel cakey or slabby, nor did we get any other obvious signs of instability....all day. Which was a bit unnerving. Soldier is a good Frequent Flier, but we have always thought that the steeper, more-exposed, and more-open top was the most suspect, but the 35 degree roll below the lower part of the ridge clearly deserves respect as well. And the path of this right side runs into the gully, where some of the (dispersed) debris covered our skinner out of the drainage where we thought we were in good trees but were actually below the open slopes above (best to keep the skinner to climber's left).

Will this settle out tomorrow and be less-likely to react to the weight of a skier on the adjacent ridge, much less on the slope? Hard sayin'......