Avalanche: Green Canyon

Observer Name
Chris Benson
Observation Date
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Avalanche Date
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Region
Logan » Green Canyon
Location Name or Route
Upper Green Canyon
Elevation
8,800'
Aspect
South
Trigger
Natural
Depth
Unknown
Width
400'
Vertical
1,750'
Comments
I witnessed this avalanche occur at 12:30pm. It was moving very slow towards me and snapping trees. It covered a relativly fresh looking skin track so I did a signal search.
At the trailhead, spoke to a group that was at the hut the night before and showed them some photos. They mentioned it was warm last night and possibly even rained a bit.
Earlier on my tour, I noticed a substantial amount of snow shedding and lots of water dripping off the trees. It felt warm with little wind a bit of green housing. Ski pen was only 1-2 cms and the snow at 8,000' was still very supportive and had clearly frozen (at least the snow surface had cooled). A pit on a SW aspect nearby seemed to be pretty locked up with only the top 3-5 cm of moist or wet snow. Not sure how different the snowpack in the crown profile would be, so a bit of a surprise.
It ran about 1,800' vertical. Thinking D size 2.5. The debris was very difficult to move through. Very much wet debris with large blocks and chunky dense snow, but still unsure of what was happening up in the start zone. In spots the debris seemed to easily be 5m deep on average and was about 1 acre in area.
Video
Coordinates