Avalanche: Soldier Peak

mark white

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Soldier Peak

Soldier Fork

8,200'

North

Skier

Hard Slab

Persistent Weak Layer

Facets

4'

900'

Triggered a large tree snapping slab avalanche in Soldier Fork remotely from the ridgeline today. The crown averaged about 3ft deep but was up to 5ft deep in a few spots, my best estimate of the width is 800 to 1000ft wide it took the entire ridge out wall to wall in a well connected slide. All it took was a small collapse while walking up the flat ridge. I was sum what disappointed in what the slide left behind, it basically slid on top of the PWL from january, it did NOT clean out the weak layer, or heat up the bed surface, there is still 2 feet plus of large grained facets just waiting for another slab to form on top. This weak layer is gonna be hard to get rid of and I wouldn’t plan on it going anywhere in the near future. Another disappointing thing about the storm is there was not a wide spread cycle on the PWL, lots of storm slab slides and sluffs and a few deeper slides that went on the the PWL, like the one on Reynolds and one I spotted on LSB but there are so many slopes on the polar end of the compass that are still intact, ex: wilson shoots, wilson glade most of the polar aspects in Buttler, Argenta, Gods Lawn Mower, i could go on and on but you get the gist of what i’m saying. I’m planning on proceeding with extreme caution for the time being, being on or under any slope with the PWL and a slab on top is just looking for trouble in the near future.