Avalanche: Monitors

Observer Name
mark white
Observation Date
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Avalanche Date
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline » Monitors
Location Name or Route
South Monitor Bowl
Elevation
9,800'
Aspect
Northeast
Slope Angle
38°
Trigger
Natural
Trigger: additional info
Cornice Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Weak Layer
Facets
Depth
14"
Width
25'
Vertical
500'
Comments
Not positive about timing but this avalanche looked fairly fresh when we came upon it, thinking maybe late last night or early this morning triggered buy a natural cornice drop caused by the increase in wind speeds yesterday afternoon and night. This slide is repeater, most of the slope avalanched too the ground two weeks ago. I skied the bed surface last week which consisted of 15 inches of new snow on dirt, it’s received 5 to 6 inches of new snow and allot of wind-loading from Wednesday’s storm. It basically looked like a natural cornice drop triggered a wind slab in the old hangfire and when it went over the old crown into the faceted snow in the old bed surface it took all the snow out to the dirt again. There was a obvious crown on the sides that the cornice did not take, which led me to believe it was a wind slab.