Early-season slide on Big Mtn.

A small skier-triggered avalanche was reported on the backside of Big Mountain over the weekend of Nov. 5-7, the Glacier Country Avalanche Center reports.

The slide occurred on a northerly aspect near the summit of the ski area. Reports say the failing layer of snow was a wind slab lying on a melt-freeze base of snow that had turned to ice.

"The size of the slide was such that it could have shallowly, but totally, buried a person." Stan Bones of the GCAC stated in an incident report. "Chances were more likely, however, of trauma injury, colliding with trees or other objects."

The avalanche center has no first-hand account of the incident and assumes that any injuries occurred were minor.

The incident comes on the tails of two other early-season human-triggered avalanches in the state.

Three skiers were caught in a slide Oct. 31 on the east face of Granite Peak in the Tobacco Root Mountains of southwest Montana.

The Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center reports that all three skiers were caught in the slide on their ascent of the peak and were spit out of the avalanche as it carried them over a talus slope.

According to the report, the skiers were on their second ascent of the peak that day and ignored signs of an unstable snow pack near the summit.

The skiers were left "pretty banged up" and bruised but didn't suffer any serious injuries.

In a separate incident, four backcountry skiers were caught in a human-triggered slide Oct. 24 on Trapper Peak in the southern Bitterroot Mountains of western Montana.

The Missoula Avalanche Center reports the slide carried the skiers as far as 125 feet and deposited one skier on a talus slope. Each member of the group was able to self excavate. Two of the skiers were not wearing transceivers.

The skiers said they ignored a weak-bond in the snowpack between this year's new snow and a perennial snowfield on the mountain. One of the skiers commented to his partner on the ascent moments before the slide that the snow was "like Styrofoam at depth" and felt "pretty slabby."

All the members of the group were left banged up and bleeding, but were able to ski out under their own power.

The GCAC says all three of the incidents have commonalties in that each occurred in a shallow snowpack of wind-loaded snow.

"Although not likely fatal, all three of the incidents could have spelled the end of someone's skiing or snowboarding experience for the season, or even a lifetime," Bones stated. "Bullets were dodged, but not by skill or design, only by luck."

For more information on avalanche advisories in the Glacier area and upcoming avalanche safety and education events, go to www.glacieravalanche.org.