Avalanche: Little Superior

Observer Name
McKee
Observation Date
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Avalanche Date
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Little Superior
Location Name or Route
Little Superior Right
Elevation
10,100'
Aspect
Southeast
Slope Angle
39°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Weak Layer
Density Change
Depth
12"
Width
60'
Vertical
1,750'
Comments

Saw the debris driving to work, saw fresh traverse tracks leading into and away from the slide. Seems like two folks involved. Seems like they got out with much incident and had a good run down.

From bellow it looked much bigger and deeper and I thought for sure it had something to do with the mlk crust. Turns out it was 3-18" deep. The weak layer was a density change in Tuesdays snow; stellars on the bed surface mixed graupel above, 4 finger wind blown. The MLK crust was burried a meter down in this location. I got a STE, (CT2Q1, ECTN) x2 on the week layer. I got a CTN for the facets around the MLK crust, which is about 3 inches thick with 1-2mm facets below. As the avalanche descended it intrained all the new snow, I think, on the MLK crust which isn't as burried as deep further down the slope. This allowed such a small avalanche to travel such a long way. Saw the same thing from a natural cornice fall in Whitepine, Whitepine Chutes 3 and 4 and antoher skier triggered slide later in the day under skiers left main Superior.

Mark White photo:

Coordinates