UDOT PLANNED AVALANCHE CLOSURES!!

Avalanche: Twin Lakes Pass

Observer Name
Dan Griffith
Observation Date
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Avalanche Date
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Twin Lakes Pass
Location Name or Route
Highway to Heaven
Elevation
10,400'
Aspect
South
Slope Angle
33°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
8"
Width
50'
Vertical
200'
Caught
1
Comments

This was an unintentional slide, but I knew that there was a soft slab up against the rock outcropping that I was traversing under to get

Comments

As the day progressed today, slopes of 30-32 degrees were showing signs of significant instability. I was able to ski cut small test slopes throughout the day, producing some shooting cracks of 6-12' wide. Since these did not sustain enough pitch, they were not producing slabs to move down slope. What was interesting today, is that stuff was not necessarily cracking right on the convexities, they were pulling out either just above them or a few feet below them. Also, sloughs were running far and lots of natural activity was observed on just about all aspects that had any amount of wind loading. Today was not aspect dependent, as there had been some serious cross loading that drifted slopes well below the ridge lines from the initial SW winds, then reburied by winds out of the NW. Tricky out there today and you really needed to pay attention.

Coordinates