Observation Date
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Avalanche Date
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Days Fork » Jaws
Location Name or Route
Jaws
Elevation
9,800'
Aspect
Northwest
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Depth
7"
Width
150'
Vertical
500'
Comments
Looking into Jaws, the skier left ramp appeared obviously wind loaded. We discussed options for skiing and felt comfortable taking the sneak on skier right by the trees with the plan to stay away from that side and to carry some speed to cut right after the first choke.
It was not very powerful, and was easily skied out to the right. The slide crown's looked to be about 6-8 inches and the slide ran about 500 ft down to the start of the trees.
We were surprised by how far down the location where it was triggered was, which was about about 100-150 feet down the line, and with how far it propagated out along each shelf along the skiier's left wall (maybe 200 feet in total).
Coordinates