Observer Name
Grainger, Young
Observation Date
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Avalanche Date
Saturday, December 11, 2021
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline » Murdock Peak
Location Name or Route
PC Ridgeline
Elevation
9,400'
Aspect
Northeast
Slope Angle
36°
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Comments
A ridge walk from Summit Park to the Millcreek saddle showed more evidence of Friday's slab failing on the faceted old snow interface in a number of the suspect NNW-E aspects.
Friday's new snow has been wind-worked into an 8-20" (stiff cake-batter) slab and has obscured parts of the crowns that came from natural and human-triggered slides on this interface during the weekend.
The west wind-loaded subridges of Murdock Peak's northerly drainages both slid on the paths' convex rolls (Pic 1&2) and North Bowl propagated ~100' to the east across the path.
Other areas showed human triggers (remote example pic 3).
While the sensitivity has trended down since the weekend, the slab cohesion has increased significantly on wind exposed slopes (pic 4). Many rolling collapses throughout the day. This with lingering interface facets will create the platform for larger propagation and hard slab slides if overloaded by tonight's storm event.
Coordinates