Observer Name
Cawley
Observation Date
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Avalanche Date
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Broads Fork » Diving Board
Location Name or Route
Broads Fork-Diving Board
Elevation
10,000'
Aspect
Northeast
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Natural
Avalanche Type
Glide
Avalanche Problem
Gliding Snow
Weak Layer
Ground Interface
Depth
Unknown
Width
60'
Vertical
1,250'
Comments
Upon arriving at the pond in Broads Fork this morning, spied a pretty fresh-looking debris pile in the Diving Board area (could be Blue Ice, I'm not seasoned enough to really know whats going on in Broads) and although my immediate hunch was that it was an overnight slide triggered by loading from strong SW winds, I had to hit the internet and check various observations to ascertain this was not the same slide as reported earlier this week. Sure enough, cross-reference reveals that there have been two recent slides in the Diving Board: the red arrows indicates what appears to be an overnight event, and the yellow arrows indicate the slide Brett observed on Thursday.
There are about 6 separate glide avalanches apparent in Broads From from the last ~10 days--kind of a bummer. Are temperatures really so warm that free water is present in the snowpack on high elevation, shady slopes in mid-January? Or, is it that the dark, smooth quartzite slabs in Broads Fork harbor extremely weak snow in shallower conditions, allowing natural, full-depth slides to occur when the snowpack seems dormant nearly everywhere else?
Coordinates