Avalanche: Lake Martha

Observation Date
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Avalanche Date
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Lake Martha
Location Name or Route
Martha's Bowl
Elevation
9,900'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Unknown
Avalanche Type
Hard Slab
Avalanche Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Weak Layer
Facets
Depth
Unknown
Width
350'
Vertical
450'
Comments

Ran across this one in Martha Bowl that was not reported previously. It appeared to go early in the last event and at this point had between 12 to 18 inches of snow on top of the old Bed Surface. It had gone wall to wall, and it appeared that the upper hanging snow field above the big white cliffs had released and cascaded over the cliffs and triggered the entire Bowl. Of Note: the slide ran a tremendously long distance catching air over the hump below the bowl and pouring over the summer trail. It went at least 100 feet down the low angle run to Lake Martha. It was very hard to see the crown as it had filled in significantly. The Bed Surface was knife hard. The light was poor and thus no picture.