Skier triggered on Emigrant Peak

From an email:

 

This was triggered Christmas Eve day while skinning up a ridge in the mountains east of Emigrant Peak. It broke about 8' back from the cornice/drift right near my ski tips. I instinctively did a quick drop and roll away even though it was unnecessary. Pretty pulse quickening. I didn't get great pictures as I was heading up the ridge and the light was bad. You can pick out the debris flow by its lighter shade of white and see chunks of cornice/slab that got hung up in the starting zone.

 

North Facing aspect at approx. 9800' on a west to east ridge.Slope angles are 35-40. Crown varied from 1-3'. Hard slab on the the cornice propagated to two other small starting zones and pulled the cornices and all the faceted snow near the ridgeline. Avalanche ran about 800'. 

 

The last few week's weather has really weakened what was starting off to be a decent base.  Now the winds have capped a a lot of zones with a hard slab pockets.