Avalanche: 10420

Observer Name
MAC
Observation Date
Monday, December 27, 2021
Avalanche Date
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » 10420
Location Name or Route
Northeast Bowl/10420
Elevation
10,400'
Aspect
Northeast
Trigger
Natural
Depth
3'
Width
100'
Comments
Saw three avalanches while climbing up the ridge alongside Northeast Bowl this am: one broke where the bowl rolls over to 30°+ on the skier's right side of the bowl (hard to see but seems to have run 100+ feet with a crown of roughly 3 feet), another in the gully to skier's right of the bowl (which appears to have slid prior to Sunday's snow, and ran much farther than I've seen it slide before, perhaps 200+ feet), and the third right off the top of true 10420 peak (slid down to the trees below the peak and seemed to have a crown of 2-3 feet). Except for the gully shot, all seem to have slid during the high PI event on Sunday.
Nothing particularly surprising in any of these: all broke on steeper terrain, and none needed a skier to trigger them. Just a healthy reminder that with this snowpack, it's not a matter of *if* things will slide but *when* on anything E-N-W. I've yet to see anything over 30° that did *not* slide when a skier touched it or got close. Fun times in the Wasatch.
Coordinates