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Avalanche: Red Pine Gulch

Observer Name
Aaron Saks
Observation Date
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Avalanche Date
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Red Pine Gulch
Location Name or Route
Upper Red Pine Fork
Elevation
10,500'
Slope Angle
35°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Intentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Wet Slab
Avalanche Problem
Wet Snow
Weak Layer
Wet grains
Depth
6"
Width
30'
Vertical
300'
Comments
Headed up Red Pine with the intention of going to summit the Pifferhorn. 2 miles of hiking and rapid warming made us turn back just below the alpine ridge. We were going to drop down into the bowl just SE of the spur ridge that leads up to the alpine ridge. I skied around and across the top the bowl. The wet slab broke about 3 feet in front of me and picked up more snow as it went down. The slide started at a convexity where the upper slope meets the top of the bowl. The slide was rather slow. There was about 1-2 feet of debris at the bottom. There were a lot of 1-2 day old roller balls in the area, and some larger slides on the slope south of Upper Red Pine Lake.
Comments
I am also posting a shot of a much larger avalanche on the South slope of the main wall above Upper Red Pine Lake (just SE of White Baldy). We did not see this happen, but suspect it occurred sometime this week with the rapid heating. It appeared to break all the way down to the ground near the top. It looks like either rock fall initiated, or point release.
Coordinates