Observer Name
Caleb
Observation Date
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Avalanche Date
Monday, February 13, 2017
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Hogum
Location Name or Route
Hogum
Elevation
10,300'
Aspect
Northeast
Slope Angle
38°
Trigger
Unknown
Avalanche Type
Wet Loose
Avalanche Problem
Wet Snow
Weak Layer
Density Change
Depth
10"
Width
80'
Vertical
200'
Comments
Went into hogam fork early and at first light and saw many wet loose slides from the previous day 02/12 on all sunny aspects. Some of these looked like sluffs but a few on steep aprons looked to be wet slabs with identifiable crowns. This one in particular in the sliver apron looked to be cornice triggered. We skinned up to check it out and after digging a bit it looked like it failed in between a graupel layer and a pencil hard 3cm crust. Cornices on the thunder ridge were very large and with daytime warming we were weary of them. The debris pile was 2 to 2.5 feet deep from this avalanche. Other soft slabs/sluffs in this apron were very easy to manage with ski cuts and entrained a fair bit of snow while running on the crust. Our ECT on this NE facing apron was EXT X but with a bit of force and the use of a shovel it cleanly sheared Q1 at 40cm on a pencil hard crust below some healing graupel. This may be an area of concern with significant loading in future storms. The exit out hogam was filled in well and provided some excellent adventure skiing on the forming NSF as always.
