Avalanche Cycle: SE Facing Claytons Peak (See Photo) 175 Feet wide, Vertical: 700; All Steep NE Facing Terrain coming off of Preston Peak, Snake Creek Peak, and Caribou Canyon (See Photos). All of these NE Facing Ridges had connected Slides running down the ridges, and from inspection the Caribou Canyon Slides all were running down into old snow and up to 3.5 feet deep. Each separate Chute/Gully appeared to be having activity on N, NE, E, and SE aspects. Everything ran from Christmas Tree all the way to Pin Ball. The Other Runs did not Slide. All of these slides appeared to have Wind Loading as a contributing factor, and technically would be called a Storm Snow Avalanche Problem despite the fact that there was a Persistent Weak Layer involved. The slab obviously was not 3 days old, thus this would be called a Storm Slab overloaded by Wind with a Persistent Weak Layer. The Collapse Failure appeared to be a result of a Facet/Crust/Facet/Crust Sandwich, and the upper Crust that Collapsed and failed was Knife Hard and was 3 cm thick. The Bed Surface Crust was Ice Hard and this Crust was from the Warm High Pressure that was in place prior to the latest batches of small storm events that occurred in the last weeks of February. This upper part of the sandwich that failed was in place and was the snow surface prior to last Thursdays snow event.

Clayton Peak SE Facing Slide. It appeared to have initiated from ridge line as a cornice failure and smaller resulting slide and then descended sympathetically triggering the larger slide below the cliff lines. There were also smaller pockets in the terrain well down into this drainage.

One chute in the Caribou Canyon Slide

Another Chute in the connected Caribou Canyon Slide. Note extensive cracking and places where the slope angle was not enough for total failure. This kind of activity was observed off of Snake Creek Peak as well as off of Preston Peak. Unfortunately the light was not sufficient to get good photos of these unusual and lengthy Crack Lines.