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Observation: Park City Ridgeline

Observation Date
12/12/2013
Observer Name
PE2
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline
Location Name or Route
Willow Lake to Monitors and back
Weather
Sky
Clear
Weather Comments
Beautiful day in the mountains. Little to no wind. Lots of sun, broke a sweat more than once. Temps dropped quickly in the last moments of sunshine.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Wind Crust
Snow Characteristics Comments
“The Good, The Bad, and the Refrozen” Snow shows heating on the southern slopes. What was super creamy around 12:00 turned rock hard by 4:00. As you may agree, those shrubberies are getting growing larger as the snow settles. Cones around twigs show 3-5 inches of settlement on south facing slopes. The farther up you travel, the more wind affected the snow was. We skied down the ridge between the West and South Monitors area; snow was wind affected with soft powder underneath. The wind skin was breakable and made for herky-jerky skiing.
Red Flags
Red Flags Comments
Cracking was minimal on all aspects traveled. Collapsing was minimal also, however was noted on the ENE aspects. The inversion is creeping up to 6000’ around 5:00 PM. Does this mean we will have surface hoar growing above this elevation?? Surface hoar was noted around the shady areas.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments
We did see a small slide on the NNE side of South Monitor that looked it was produced by wind loading. It looked around 40’ feet wide by 12-18’ deep. It looked to break between the facets and new (old-ish) snow. It was kind of hard to see how far down the slope it went. There were bits of bare ground showing in the starting zone.
Snow Profile
Aspect
East
Elevation
9,600'
Comments
I had time to dig two small pits on the way back up to the BCC/PC ridge line after skiing the ridge between the Monitors. I dug down at around 9600’ and found a new snow slab (nice and aesthetic) of about 16”, above a 16” layer of facets (slightly darker and gross looking). The facets at the bottom were able to be formed into a snowball (damp). At about 9800”, the same set up existed visually, yet it had a stiff well bonded section in the lower portion of facets just above the ground. At 9800”, moving from ground up, there are a few inches of dry facets, a consolidated slab of facets (temp affected facets??), more dry facets, and then the 16” of new snow. It was interesting that within about 200’ the facets looked to have melted and refroze at 9800’, and had melted and were damp at 9600”. Not sure how this works.... Neither of the pits would produce a Q1 sheer. It took a bit to get a fracture on the new snow slab>facet interface. Stay off any steep slope that does not have any natural anchors. The snow on the steep, open slopes looks like it has a wind skin and will not likely produce smooth riding conditions. My guess is that while the snow is rotting from the top down, the load will be adapting to the weight on the lowest (October) facet layer. This is a love/hate relationship: the upper elevations will become a little safer while the facets adjust to the snow slab, until we get a lot of new snow or a lengthy period of high pressure that rots the entire snowpack. Either increases the avy danger. The latter looks more realistic. Yay.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate
Coordinates