Avalanche: White Pine

Observer Name
Matthew
Observation Date
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Avalanche Date
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
Birthday Chutes
Elevation
10,500'
Aspect
North
Trigger
Natural
Depth
4'
Width
100'
Comments
We climbed up into Columbine bowl and got a good look at a large slide that broke at the top of Birthday Chutes. The crown appeared to have propagated across multiple chutes with the crown clearly showing across the wind loaded top sections. The slide must have gone naturally during the high precipitation on the 18th, or based on heavy wind loading from the recent SW wind event on the 19th. There were still very visible sections of large crown, despite additional heavy wind loading, and debris stacked high in the flat sections at the bottom of Columbine bowl, meaning it must have run 600 + vertical feet. The debris was covered with new wind transported snow but still very obvious. We watched it continue to reload as we skied the treed sections below. It's difficult to tell from these photos with poor visibility, but the old crown stretched across the top of the three chutes furthest West and debris was all the way into the trees out of the photo lookers right.