Two parties of three and a party of two were traveling up Cold Fusion this morning when the party of two, bootpacking the upper section of the run, triggered a small wind slab which caught and carried both skiers approximately 400-500' down the slope. The avalanche ran approximately 1000', with the toe stopping just above the lower cliff band of the run at 9800'. One of the other parties was transitioning to bootpack at the time and some of their gear was entrained in the slide and carried a short distance down the slope.

Both skiers were able to self arrest and neither were seriously injured. The lost gear was also recovered partially buried lower in the debris.

All three parties had noted earlier in the morning the higher than anticipated wind at the summit and had discussed possible changes to their plans depending on the loading and layering that was observed once in the line. All three parties traveled to the top of the protected skintrack in the trees to climbers right before discussing options for crossing into the main run to continue their ascent. All eight skiers crossed the main run one-at-a-time to a relative island of safety on climbers left where the intention was to further examine the wind loading. One party of three and the party of two ascended from this point approximately 50-100' and began transitioning to bootpack. The other party of three made the decision to descend from this point based on concerns about the snowpack. The first skier from this party was descending the skiers left side of the run when the avalanche was triggered above and was able to safely ski to the trees on the left before re-ascending to check on the two caught skiers.

Once it was determined that all skiers were safe and accounted for all three parties descended the remainder of the line separately.

A snowpit dug prior to the third parties decision to descend showed both new snow and wind transport resting on top of a thin crust sandwiched by small grain facets. Stability test on this layer resulted in ECTN21 with a very clean plane of shear.

Photo 1: Both skiers at the locations where they were able to self arrest.

Photo 2: The crown is visible to the right of center at the top of the photo.

Photo 3: Looking back up from the toe of the debris.

Since there were eight skiers present there's probably a lot of other input, photos, etc. that could be added here.