Avalanche: Days Headwall 11/20/2010

Observer Name: 
Bart Gillespie
Observation Date: 
11/20/2010
Occurrence Date: 
11/20/2010
Occurrence Time: 
11:30am
Region: 
Salt Lake
Big Cottonwood Canyon
Days Fork
Days Headwall
Location Name: 
Days-Flagstaff ridgeline
Printer-friendly version

Location

40° 35' 58.1496" N, 111° 38' 21.7536" W
Avalanche Characteristics
Elevation: 
10500'
Aspect: 
North
Trigger: 
Skier
Avalanche Type: 
Cornice Fall
Weak Layer: 
Facets
Depth (avg): 
18"
Width: 
100'
Vertical: 
700'
General Comments

Walking East on Days-Flagstaff ridge we had multiple sensitive cornices that would crack and propagate sympathetically from the weight of walking the ridge. The smaller ones ran on what seemed like a weak layer under the windblown but the largest ran at or very near the ground which was rocky. Most left12-24" crowns with the largest well over 6' and went wall to wall in a chute, over some cliffs, leaving a substantial debris pile in the flats of Days fork. Of note the same ridge line a little further East above Silver Fork about 3-4 hrs earlier was not sensitive at all with large cornice drops producing nothing but a little sluff. The strong Southerly winds on the ridge demonstrated snow transport without substantial snowfall. Winds this strong were visibly moving snow quickly and the conditions were changing hour by hour.

PB200039.JPG
PB200040.JPG
PB200036.JPG
PB200037.JPG
Javascript is required to view this map.

Site Built by Dharmatech
Site Refresh by Flint Creative