Observer Name
mark white
Observation Date
Monday, December 3, 2018
Avalanche Date
Monday, December 3, 2018
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline » Monitors » West Monitor
Location Name or Route
West Monitor Bowl
Elevation
10,000'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
33°
Trigger
Natural
Trigger: additional info
Repeater
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Weak Layer
Facets
Depth
3'
Width
500'
Vertical
700'
Comments
Discovered this large avalanche in West Monitor Bowl while hiking out of South Monitor, looks to have occurred in the early morning hours seeing that the bed surface had 3 inches of light density snow on it. Not really sure if soft slab is a good definition because the slab at the bottom was a one finger hard slab. The crown was on a 32 to 33 degree slope which roles over and gets steeper down lower on the slope. The crown averaged around 2ft but was 3ft in the middle. It measured between 450 to 500ft taking all the snow out to the ground. I did a crown profile which revealed light density snow on top with the slab getting stiffer moving down through the pack. It failed on facets on the October crust then stepped down to the facets below the crust at the ground interface, taking the crust with it. I’m positive that this slope has already avalanched once if not twice already this season.
Photos: crown and flanks of the avalanche, crown profile, and the runout, and a video showing the whole deal
Video