Divide Basin

I skied around the little hills in the basin south of Divide Peak today, and saw quite a bit of recent activity. The southwest corner of the cirque slid on the storm slab and broke 1200-1500’ wide, an east aspect had a crown that exceeded 6’ in places, and the south side of Divide broke 2-6’ deep and ran full track. I am not sure what the bigger slides failed on, and would not feel particularly confident guessing, but things up high are active. We dug a pit on the south side of Palace Butte on Saturday and found what appeared to be a very stable snowpack, but seeing Divide slide on the same aspect is evidence that a snowpit is only part of the puzzle. I observed no collapsing or cracking, but the signs of instability were still pretty clear.