Big winds in the Wellsvilles means big avalanches! We watched the wind pick up and move a foot of snow from one side of the mountain to the other on our south facing approach. We got to a place to transition and started skiing down in the wind towards the east down the ridge to look for a good place to start into the bowl. Wind loading was extreme. Skier 1 traversed safety to another sub ridge and I dropped in for about four or five turns actually before it was cracking up so me and skier 1 traversed the sub ridge even more because it was starting to come at us from above. Skier 3 was blinded and taking pauses in the high winds on the main ridge but was able to navigate the crown and bed surface to us to regroup. I watched the avalanche pick up speed and we skied down investigated the debris field which ran about 2000' vert, snapped small maples and into a small gully...

I'm glad no one was caught. The wind even without storm snow was fierce, and very difficult to do anything. It pushed the danger scale way up and as a group it was definitely a good thing to have options and it should be noted that this is the first aggressive bowl of the Wellsvilles. Ski cutting into the bowl vs going out the way we came up was the reason this slide was triggered. It's hard to say what could have gone differently.