Avalanche: Superior

Observer Name
Sean
Observation Date
Saturday, January 28, 2023
Avalanche Date
Saturday, January 28, 2023
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Superior
Location Name or Route
Hilton / Valeries
Elevation
8,800'
Aspect
South
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Weak Layer
Density Change
Depth
14"
Width
40'
Caught
1
Carried
1
Comments
Exploring the south side of the south ridge of superior - Valeries/Hilton zone. Uphill travel was 50% on the debris that the Gazex mitigation work had released overnight. This certainly gave a false sense of security, even though it should have been noted as a red flag. That false sense eventually became irrelevant, because travel continued past the Gazex and into unmitigated areas above. Preparing to transition and stomping out a landing platform, I remotely triggered a wind slab from about 30' above. The slide ran about 500' in places, but I only traveled about 50' before stopping. In the shuffle managed to break a snowboard but fortunately nothing else. Mistakes were certainly made but one of the biggest takeaways would be to give wind slab problems more respect than I typically tend to. From other reports from today, it looks like lots of reactive wind slabs in similar zones/aspects/elevations.
Coordinates