chester

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Seagull

tuscarora, 3 shoot or seagull

10,400'

East

40°

Snowboarder

Unintentionally Triggered

Soft Slab

Wind Drifted Snow

New Snow/Old Snow Interface

12"

70'

1,000'

1

on the way out, saw a lot of east facing ridges higher elevation that had slide due to 4 days of wind loading. ridge east of twin lakes pass, north west ridge of sunset, alta looked like they had success w exploses, saw wind slabs that were cracking high and n e facing on previous days, etc. This was discussed by the group. I thought 3 shoot was probably a bad idea as it it is similar aspect and elevation, commented that we should be very concerned about wind slabs, but I decided ""what does it hurt to take a look"? from the top It "looked" good and I suddenly felt better about it. party of 3, person # 3 did not enter shoot until after it slide. person #1 cut top, no sluff, person #2 joined and stopped. person #1 then cut inside the top under a rock on left side of shoot and waited. person #2 followed same track but stopped 2' below person #1, and it fractured at person #1's feet, or a foot above person #2. person # 2 did not go for a ride, just dropped onto the bed. Mistakes-Ignoring/not acting on obvious red flags of other slides "end of year for brighton" run lead to seeing what we wanted to see. a general attitude of why is this safe vs why is this going to slide.