Dan Gates

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Mineral Fork

Mineral Fork

Cold day riding great snow in Cardiff Fork. With the perfectly clear skies it was a great day to check out slides from the last avy cycle. Mineral fork seemed to have a lot of activity. No technical observations, just photos of some impressive slides. These slides seemed to be more recent than some of the older visible crowns that had been blown in or slid earlier in the storm. East Fork Mineral had multiple crowns in it. The obvious crown mid photo and one higher towards the upper right side, just below the ridge. Both crowns looked to be multiple feet, with high consequence terrain below. If you look closely you can see two ski tracks descending the center of the shot.

Barrieto went wall to wall. Looks to have fractured in the weak snow around the small cliffs at the top of the path. Lot's of tracks on Moonlight and the runs down canyon. People are slowly starting to venture onto more exposed terrain. While the snowpack seems to be healing, I still do not trust it.