No news on the trigger?
I read elsewhere that the avalanche may have occurred because of re-freezing, which definitely can happen ... but it's very rare.
Still, a very sad outcome for the climber and their family.
In some places, especially high elevations, the pack is still very wintery. Some recent ( informal ) test profiles in the North Cascades have shown rounds to the grounds, but there are a variety of suspect regions/interfaces/small layers composed of rounds of different sizes. The larger rounds are 4-5x bigger than the smaller rounds. With the right triggers, this funky layering will produce avalanches, and the mass of the avalanche will increase with depth to weakness.
Not sure that most of these weaknesses are suitable for skier-triggering right now, except in thin spots, but the likelihood of skier-triggering and large naturals is going to increase as the top of the snowpack diminishes in the next few weeks. I bet most people here know this already, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's only just now getting to be spring at higher elevations.
Whatever the case, I am digging more test profiles now than I was during the winter.
