Early this morning myself and three other touring partners set out from the White Pine trailhead seeking out low angle ski lines. We had already established back at the car that we were not going to get on anything of remote steepness and focus instead on having a nice Christmas Eve "walk in the woods."

Upon reaching the Red Pine trees, we found low angle, 25-27 degree glades with fun, playful terrain. Other touring parties in the area informed us of settling in the snow pack that they had heard, and we quickly started to observe similar signs of instability. We began skiing laps through the safer zones, working to ensure that we steered clear of the steeper slopes.

After ascending the trees for a fourth time we decided to begin working our way back to the car. After some recon it was established that there were two potential routes to the Maybird bridge that we had crossed earlier: schwacking our way through the brush and tight trees that we had initially broken trail through or taking a short (but steep) line that separated the low angle glades from the flat meadow directly southwest of the bridge. Since this is an avalanche report, it should come as no surprise that we elected to take the latter.

Previous to dropping in, we discussed the risks and decided that due to the short distance of exposure between us and the safety of the meadow, it was worth giving it a shot. For one of the members in our group, that risk was more than he was willing to take, so the decision was made to split the group, sending two to check out the alternative exit route. They stayed for a moment to ensure we got down the steeper exit route safely.

I skied first halfway down the face to our established island of safety. From there I sent my buddy down to make for the meadow a hundred feet below us. He was part way down when the whole face shattered like a pane of glass. The avalanche occurred on a faceted layer approximately two feet down.

Fortunately for my buddy, he had done a shoulder check right as the face ripped out and was able to ski hard left into another island of safety right as the avalanche slid passed him. The call to drop onto this face went from "kind of a sketchy call" to "wow, that was a really really bad call" in a matter of moments. After working our way back to the car with our tails between our legs, we discussed the major mistakes that had been made throughout the day and the ways in which we definitely need to be better.

Here are the key takeaways: