Avalanche: Superior

Observer Name
Dave Kikkert
Observation Date
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Avalanche Date
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Superior
Location Name or Route
South Facing Little Cottonwood
Elevation
10,000'
Aspect
Southeast
Slope Angle
32°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Intentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Weak Layer
New Snow
Depth
8"
Width
30'
Vertical
50'
Comments

For some odd reason walked over to Little Superior. Interested in south facing. Looked at a couple quick pits and could not find the surface hoar layer. Triggered a small soft slab on SE facing on the shoulder of Cardiff Bowl. New snow only, 3-8 inches deep. Due to the very manageable nature of the soft slab, continued on to look at south facing off Little Superior. When we got to Little Superior, precip rates picked up considerably. Was able to intentionally trigger another small soft slab, approximately 8 inches deep by stomping on the ridge. Ran maybe 50 vertical, running very slowly with little to no punch to it. As things still seemed manageable, decided to ski the south facing subridge down thinking that soft slabs would become less easy to trigger as we dropped in elevation. They did not. Could pretty much trigger shallow new snow soft slabs with nearly every turn. None of them packed any punch and most were only about 20 feet wide. However, one released sympathetically in the next gully to the west, and looked to be about 100 feet wide and ran considerably farther (visibility was terrible). All the slides ran on a density inversion between the overnight snow and the snow that fell yesterday before flow shifted to the NW. We must have triggered 2 dozen of these and basically ruined any good turning possibilities by removing all the snow before it could be skied. I think we hit the area at the height of instability and much of this instability has likely already subsided. Although none of the soft slabs had any punch, and we mitigated by sticking to subridges, would have been smarter to be in lower angled terrain, not too mention it would have had been better skiing. Good lesson on what can happen when precip rates pick up.

Coordinates