Slide in Quartz Creek - Feb 8

I should have posted Ryan's comments to go along with the pics.  I'm sure he won't mind.

"We were out riding in Quartz. Most of the zone is totally punched, but there was one face at the pack of the prairie hills headwall, lookers left side, that was untouched. We did not go out on to the face, but took a track around it and above it on the ridge well back from the slope. After turning around and coming back down we noticed that we had remote triggered a big avalanche.
It looks to have released on the dec 29 surface hoar layer.

There was a group of snowboarders that had already ridden the lookers right side of this area and told me they had tried to do a couple sled carve tests at the very top and got nothing to move.

No one was caught in the slide, although the group of boarders were hanging out fairly close to where the debris ended up.

After digging a bunch of pits and doing compression tests for the past month, i knew that layer was still alive and kicking. Regardless of what the bulletin says, the zone you are riding in can be a lot different.

see attached pics. Once is snows again, there will be 2 more fresh surface hoar layers that will be buried around Golden. If you don't know what this means you need to take an AST course."

That's a spooky avi but pretty much to be expected. I'm always surprised that slope doesn't slide more than it does. I've seen a lot of avi paths go this year in Quartz that usually don't. 

I can also confirm that the Dec 29th layer is lurking just about everywhere in Silent Pass. Especially below treeline on the pillows. A lot of the alpine slopes slid natural (and big) during the storm.

That layer spooks me because of how weak the bond is and how fast the slides are. 

We were in Silent last Friday.  Found lots of slide evidence, North facing, below treeline.  It seemed like a pretty distinct elevation though, as we couldn't get pillows to crack off just below where things slid, and I was in the trees to the right, above the steep climb on the trail in, and didn't get anything to go.

On another note, the grooming out to Silent was SUPERB!!  The fancy computer on XP's can do AVG speed and we were 74mph avg on the way out with top speed of 94mph.  Good thing it was warm.