Wet Loose on Relay Peak

On Tuesday morning, March 29, we toured up to the summit of Relay. As we gained elevation, we observed several inches of new, wet snow on top of a crust layer, calm wind, cloudy skies, fog that limited visibility and temps above freezing (we did not have thermometer but guessed close to 40f, which is consistent with NOAA's forecast for the area at that time). By the time we summited Relay, a bit after 12pm, boot penetration was through most of the new snow to the crust layer. We did not see signs of natural avalanches during our ascent.

At around 12:40pm, during a break in the fog, my partner dropped in and made one turn onto an east facing slope (97 degrees E according to my Iphone compass) just below the summit of Relay, releasing a series of roller balls that quickly grew in size and fanned out to cover a fairly wide portion of the slope below. His ski cut down to crust on the turn so it seems the initial roller balls included a good portion of the snow that fell last night (Monday). We did not make additional turns on this slope and instead opted to ski a mostly low-angle, gladed run down to Ginny Lake. We did not experience instability on this descent but did see two natural point releases on steeper slopes to skiers right on the way down.