Observation: Big Cottonwood Canyon 1/4/2012

Observer Name:

Kikkert

Region:

Salt Lake
Big Cottonwood Canyon

Observation Date:

01/04/2012

Location or Route:

Silver, Days, Toledo, Cardiff

Weather

Sky:

Clear

Wind Speed:

Calm

Weather Comments:

Felt like spring, warm with no wind.

Snow Characteristics

Snow Characteristic Comments:

There was still some soft settled snow on sheltered north facing - however all the soft settled snow we found was very slow - felt like you still had your skins on in some places. Not really sure why it was so slow, guess is just a combination of the dust and debris mixed in. All other aspects were a mix of wind scoured and crusted over facets. South and southeast were supportable, with almost-corn at 11 AM. Rain crust was not really noticeable in the areas of soft snow when skinning or skiing, but digging down you could find it, just a couple mils thick and pretty crumbly.

Red Flags

Cracking

Collapsing

Red Flag Comments:

Mostly just out for a walk - so didn't push into any steep terrain (nothing looks appealing anyway). Stomped around on a few wind drifts on some steep test slopes where we could get the drifts to crack out, but not really move. Got a couple other collapses while crossing drifts on lower angled terrain. I don't think it would have taken much effort to get something bigger to go on a steeper slope. Other than the recent drifts, not really much to note structure wise in the snowpack - just facets capped by anything from the thin crusts to stout crusts to stout drifts. Falling on hidden rocks - or getting taken for a ride through rock is still a legitimate consideration.

snow_profile_location:

Comments - Photos - Videos (group 1)

One encouraging thing is that south and southeast aspects are bare or have only about a foot of dense supportable snow. If it ever snows - may be able to do something in these areas.