The avalanche was one of the early slides of the natural cycle that started Friday night, March 10.

SNOWPACK AND STORM SUMMARY: The snowpack in the lower canyon (Blue Cut and down canyon) had a shallow snowpack through most of the winter. This shallow snowpack developed faceted sugary grains throughout most of the snowpack. By late February/early March, there was a slab starting to build on top of the weak basal layers. A very warm and wet storm moved in on March 10 bringing 6 to 8 inches of new dense wet snow. This alone was not enough to initiate natural avalanches. The warm temperatures (and possibly a period of rain on snow) caused the entire pack to go isothermal which weakened the faceted snow and initiated the avalanches.

Temperatures stayed warm through the 12th with some additional precipitation. More natural avalanches released on the 11th and 12th.

A second very warm and wet storm moved in on the 15th with rain on snow in the lower canyon. This caused another round of natural avalanches.

The combination of both these warm wet storms produced the most significant avalanche cycle that we've seen in Huntington Canyon since 2017.