rumpius wrote:
The pictures I have seen haven't revealed much. Was the slide on
Pali
or on International? I know the news reports said Pali, but that's
also
the name of the lift.

As posted over in rec.skiing.alpine:
From
http://www.firsttracksonline.com/news/stories/111687474972399.shtm:


The avalanche occurred in an area known as the 1st Alley, immediately
below the roll on the west side of the Pallavicini Run.
.. . .
The avalanche has been classified by the Colorado Avalanche Information

Center as a WS-AS-2-O/G. It released at treeline with the initial
fracture of 1.5 to 2 feet deep, the Center reports, but as the wet slab

moved down the mountain in places it plowed to the ground releasing
snow about four feet in depth. The debris was wet, heavy, and deep.
Rescuers said that in places their 10-foot probes could not touch the
ground. The slide has been estimated at about 250 feet across and
running about 500 vertical feet on the north-facing slope.
.. . .
"It's been a big deal around here. Inbounds on an open trail, with big
moguls on it. It seems really unusual, and it is," said Matt Duffy, a
First Tracks!! Online Ski Magazine contributing writer and Summit
County resident. "We've been going through quite a warm spell. The
temperature has not dropped to freezing since May 18. It hasn't even
been below 40ºF overnight at the peaks. Naturals have ran everywhere,
some of them pretty big. Two or three days prior to the fatal A-basin
avy, some people triggered one in Silver Couloir on Buffalo Mountain.
That one, as was the A-basin slide, was a wet slab release. Not the
same as a typical wet slide, which is basically heavy sloughing that
usually originates in areas of thin cover or from below rocks that heat

up in the sun," Duffy continued. "It was pretty wide, too. It went from

Pali Main Street into First Alley and ran all the way to the traverse
back near the bottom. It's fan climbed up and over the opposite side of

the gully. Anyone who's been there probably just gulped, because that's

pretty huge for an in-bounds May avalanche in a mogul field."
--