Hand pits revealed relatively good bonding to previous layers of snow however, due to high winds on the upper 400ft of the bowl, there was an obvious amount of cross loading and wind drifted snow.

I made a really poor call this morning. After making my way up flagstaff and accepting defeat to the extreme low vis and high winds, I made my way down canyon to somewhere with more trees and in an area I know extremely well and had ridden the day before(May 6th), Scotties Bowl. I made the mistake of ignoring red-flags beginning about halfway up the slope: Lots of spindrift on the summit, high and frequent winds, etc.

I simply made the mistake of being ignorant to the signs as I felt confident from the day before in riding the same line from the summit with endless free refills. I waited on the summit for about 10 minutes to find a break in the storm and get some decent light for the descent, but the wind did not let up very much. When I found it was my time to drop, I made a large skicut across the top of the chute and was not seeing any signs of cracking, movement, etc. I decided to ride along the spine and about 1/2 way down, I dumped into the main gut of the chute with a big turn. I was white-roomed and was forced to slow down so I didn't catch an edge/topple over, and in doing so, I was knocked from behind by my sluff, but luckily, I was to the side of the main slide pathwas barely touched by the moving snow.

Luckily, no one was injured or involved other than my own mental well-being. We make mistakes, and hopefully learn from them.