Obs-Snow Profile: White Pine 12/30/2011

Observer Name:

Kyle Van Peursem

Observation Date:

12/30/2011

Region:

Salt Lake
Little Cottonwood Canyon
White Pine

Location or Route:

Kyle Van Peursem

Weather

Sky:

Broken

Wind Direction:

Northwest

Wind Speed:

Moderate

Weather Comments:

Skies mostly cloudy with upper level clouds. Temps in the mid 40's at the parking lot decreasing to mid 30's at 10000ft. Winds gusty out of the NW blowing lots of graupel downhill.

Snow Characteristics

Snow Surface Conditions:

Dense Loose

Rain-Rime Crust

Snow Characteristic Comments:

Snow was soft and mushy below 8500 ft. Above, there was a rain crust which varied in thickness on different slopes. There were pockets of graupel being deposited by the gusty winds accumulating below steeper slopes and other terrain features.

Red Flags

Cracking

Collapsing

Red Flag Comments:

Lots of little cracking/collapsing seen at upper elevations. Heard a loud woompf while skinning up a steep slope which had a thick rain crust on top. Did not crack or collapse but scared me nonetheless. Was probably the snow settling under my weight but could've been a disaster if it broke and slid.

Primary Concern

Primary Concern:

Wind Slabs

Probability:

Considerable

Aspect:

North

Northeast

East

Southeast

South

Southwest

West

Northwest

Elevation:

High

Trend:

Same

Primary Concern Comments:

Wind was blowing graupel all over the place and was collecting at the bottom of different slopes. Pit showed multiple crusts, with weak facets in between, which were thin and fragile and broke very easily with minimal added stress. RIght now, with a shallow snowpack, slabs that do break are not big and fairly manageable. But, with added weight, especially if wind loaded, small slabs would easily pullout deeper slabs with the weak crusts currently seen.

Elevation:

9700'

Aspect:

West

Slope Angle:

snow_profile_location:

United States

40° 33' 0.6048" N, 111° 40' 14.6892" W

Comments - Photos - Videos (group 1)

Picture of snow pit showing 3 distinct crusts with graupel on top and weak facets everywhere else. Video shows an ECT being performed with result of ECTP2 Q2 at 40 cm, broke on sun crust/facet interface. Showed how weak these crusts are and that they are able to propagate a fracture.

Video 1:

Snow Profile Location

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