Avalanche: Yellow Jacket

Observer Name
Nick Burr
Observation Date
Friday, February 14, 2025
Avalanche Date
Friday, February 14, 2025
Region
Salt Lake » Mill Creek Canyon » Yellow Jacket
Location Name or Route
Yellow jacket trees
Elevation
9,000'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Skier
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Depth
2'
Width
300'
Vertical
1,250'
Comments
In addition to depth hoar bowl we Triggered a North facing shot near YJ trees, remotely, we were able to ski ridge/low angle trees to investigate it. It ran also full track, probably 1300 vertical feet. D2.5. Didn't get a look at the bed surface, too sketchball w Hangfire.. I'd assume it was a windboard we observed on smaller slides/test slopes on the way up.. But the interesting thing was it did pull off storm slabs of snow near the toe of the slide, down the sides of the tube. (See photos) Lots of stuff going on and quite upside down snow in Millcreek with this latest storm. This weekend is going to be a time to majorly step back.. If we get the snow that is forecasted a lot of stuff is going to go real real big.
Hope everyone really considers their travel plans this weekend and after the cycle. While I'm on the soapbox, after this cycle.. when this PWL is less I'll say, ski lines top down if they can be, you don't know who is above you and you are putting the uphill skier in a weird spot where they feel bad skiing on top of someone that shouldn't be going up the couloir in the first place. Backcountry ethics should be spoken about the Wasatch is turning into a loose operation. No need to boot up something that you can skin to the top of, use a topo map and google earth and figure it out. Tighten up people!
Coordinates