Crown varied from 2" to 16",
snow profile:
4" new snow, fist
8" thick pencil to knife slab, this is the slab that ran, This was an old slab and not new snow.
4" facets, 1mm, fist
facets, 4 finger to one finger, this was the bed surface.
Of note the slide did step down thru a 1" thick crust into more facets, this crust was not observed at the crown.
This is a perfect example of a booby trap (albeit an a-cup one) that can occur in areas of generally low danger. The TGR folks would call it mini-golf.
The slide was triggered by skier A on a mid-slope roll over, who skied off the slab. Skier B, triggered a 12' wide section of hangfire (the cut was sorta intentional, the ride not....) and went for a 35' ride, very minor, he sat on the slow moving slab. Terrain did not allow him to ski off the slab. Skier B looked at the trigger for his airbag pack and decided it was not needed. Skier A watched skier B and thought "don't bother with the airbag".
It is doubtful that this would have occurred if the slope angle had been a few degrees less. Both Skiers had observed similar snow pack structures in the last week or two.
