Avalanche: Mineral Fork

Observer Name
Greg Gagne
Observation Date
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Avalanche Date
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Mineral Fork
Location Name or Route
Mineral Fork - Santiago Ridge
Elevation
9,400'
Aspect
Northeast
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Unknown
Trigger: additional info
Repeater
Depth
Unknown
Width
100'
Vertical
350'
Comments

Came across debris from a class 1.5 slide in an area known as Moonlight along E/NE facing Santiago ridgeline in Mineral Fork. Quite sketchy details. Debris looked fairly fresh - about a day old. It was a soft slab and I was unable to get a view of the starting zone, although it was in very steep, rocky terrain. Bed surface was a old, hard wind slab. I met up with another skier who regularly tours in Mineral and he indicated he thought it was a repeater. He had seen debris in the slide path on Tuesday, and this debris was new. A very wild guess is that it was wind loading in steep rocky terrain and perhaps triggered from a cornice fall. Photos are of debris from about mid-point in the slide path, as well as another with the approximate slide path from wasatchbackcountryskiing.com screenshot.

SS-N/NC-R3-D2

Perhaps someone has more details on this apparent natural slide.