Observer Name
PJMarth
Observation Date
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Avalanche Date
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline » Monitors » West Monitor
Location Name or Route
West Monitor
Elevation
9,500'
Aspect
East
Slope Angle
40°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Remotely Triggered
Avalanche Type
Dry Loose
Avalanche Problem
New Snow
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
22"
Width
40'
Vertical
500'
Comments
This classic sympathetic slide went off 30 feet away when I was 4 turns in on the upper low-angle ramp above the start zone. (see photos)
My guard was down a bit so this suprised me. Fortunately I was skiing on lower angle terrain above. Classic rollover 30 feet to my right
was of concern and sure enough. You can see that the wind deposition piled up around the rock band(photo) was the starting zone
pulling out left and right. (photo) This low density fast moving slide produced an impressive blower cloud near the skin track at the bottom.
This steep terrain slides historically. You can see the old slide during the warm weather event to the right(south) from 10 days earlier in one of the photos.
Comments
Sorry this is two days late...good historical data at any rate...
My take on this avy I started was this....I let my guard down a bit after skiing solid north facing runs during the am then going to the
east facing warmed and frozen snow surface facing east.. It also had wind deposition in the start zone near the rock band. All fairly predictable really. pjm