Observer Name
Sam & Andrew
Observation Date
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Avalanche Date
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Catherine's Pass
Location Name or Route
Catherine Pass
Elevation
10,300'
Aspect
North
Trigger
Natural
Depth
18"
Width
30'
Comments
We went for a walk up to Catherine's Pass with the goal of topping out near Rocky Point and riding low angle terrain back down. On the way up we experienced shooting cracks and collapsing starting around 9500 ft that persisted the rest of the way up, as we expected. At around 10,000 ft - looking up at the north facing slope directly to the skier's right of what Alta's trail map calls "Last Chance" - we noticed the slide. Dimensions provided are just a rought estimate, but it looked like the storm snow likely broke naturally on the faceted layer near the base, we could see the rocks and brush poking out from the path. We got as close to it as comfort allowed and decided not to do a beacon search because there were no tracks anywhere nearby.
From there we continued skinning east toward the pass. When we came through the next set of trees at about the same elevation and aspect, we observed very large visible cracks on the next slope over. Some were probaly 50+ feet long, and we could see them in different spots across most of the width of the slope. There was no visible skinner or ski tracks on this slope and we quickly decided to back track to flatter terrain. Super reactive day out there! Sorry if the photos are a little tough to see, it was certainly a low visibility day...
Coordinates
