Avalanche: Superior

Observer Name
Aaron Rice
Observation Date
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Avalanche Date
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Superior
Location Name or Route
Turkey chute (mount superior s face)
Elevation
10,800'
Aspect
Southeast
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
18"
Width
80'
Comments
You could say we were looking for this danger and we found it. While that's not totally ture, we did aim for exactly where the wewind slab hazard was most likely. We were an experienced group and managed the hazard accordingly. We dropped into turkey chute around 8:45 as the clouds were breaking. Two skiers skied the gut. The third skier skied a bit farther to skiers right on the more loaded south east face. We skied one at a time from safe spot to safe spot. As the 3rd skier(me) made it about 500 ft down the ridge the slope spiderwebbed under him. He skied off to skiers left out of harm's way. The slope broke above and below and continued to propagate crownlines down the chute depositing snow part way down the upper apron about 1000 vertical feet below.
During the same time another party of 3 had skied down the South ridge a ways and then dropped in to the south face. They triggered what looked to be a similar size (maybe a bit bigger) slide off the ridge that also ran in the the upper apron.
The slide broke on the old crust and had a good bit of energy. With more snow I would expect this interface to continue to be a problem.
Sorry no pics.
Coordinates