Avalanche: Cardiff Peak

Observer Name
Cawley
Observation Date
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Avalanche Date
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Cardiff Peak
Location Name or Route
Cardiff Peak N Facing
Elevation
10,000'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Natural
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
New Snow
Weak Layer
New Snow
Depth
14"
Comments
While traversing Cardiff Peak from east to west around 3 PM, I noticed what appeared to be a new snow avalanche under the north-facing cliffs on Cardiff Peak. Light was flat, but from the ridge it looked like debris was partially obscured, which suggested to me the slide occurred overnight. It looks to involve the ~15" reported in upper LCC, and seems like a likely place for a natural, storm snow avalanche given all the graupel and south winds overnight. Further west on the ridge toward two trees, I dropped a good sized cornice which rolled down the slope to the flats and entrained new snow, but it did not trigger a slab avalanche on the steep slope just west of the crown in the attached photo.
Skiing was good on the S facing in LCC, although there was some exposed crust on convexities, and down on the two trees run-out at ~8400' the snow was starting to feel pretty warm.
Coordinates