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Avalanche: Snake Creek

Observer Name
Porter
Observation Date
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Avalanche Date
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Region
Provo » Snake Creek
Location Name or Route
Snake Creek Road
Elevation
8,500'
Aspect
Northeast
Trigger
Snowmobiler
Depth
16"
Width
175'
Comments
This slide was remotely triggered by two snowmobiles riding on the road, it broke above them and propagated close to 200’ across the hill. It was surprising to see how far across it went. The debris covered the road and their tracks, I don’t think they realized what happened. We rode into the debris just after passing them. Slope angle seemed to be about 38-40 degrees, it appeared to have failed on the new snow/old snow interface. There were more weak layers closer to the surface apparent in the crown as well. This was at about 3:30pm, it had been snowing hard all day in the area. This small steep slope only had about 50’ of vert to slide until the road, but in bigger terrain this would have been huge. Wind loading may have been a factor, even though it’s far from the main ridgelines.
Coordinates