Arthur Turlak

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Days Fork » Two Dogs

Two Dogs

North

35°

Snowboarder

Sympathetic Release

Soft Slab

New Snow

Depth Hoar

18"

100'

300'

I was the first rider to drop onto the least-steep shot of Two Dogs. This shot is immediately skiers-right of the gully that's repeated several times since the Christmas storms. After 4-5 turns (75-100 feet below ridge) a small storm-snow sluff taht was kicked off from a turn traveled about 15 feet to a steep rollover along the gully edge. At the point of the rollover into the gully, the sluff stepped down into older snow and ripped out all the snow to the ground. Slide propagated the width of the gully (75-100 ft wide?) and entrained a significant amount of snow on its way down. I was unable to get back up to the crown safely to properly examine. Crown was ragged along the broken edge of the rollover and approximately 18-24" deep, with rocks and depth hoar being the primary base layer. My camera was nonfunctional at the bottom, so the included picture, by James May, is from the ridgeline looking down at the slide. Also present in the picture on skiers left edge of the slide path was a natural storm-snow sluff already present upon our arrival. That particular slide appeared to be small point-release that started 200-300 feet below the ridge and was a small fraction of the area of the human-triggered slide. This natural was probably 30-50' wide at its widest point and ran for about 100 feet. In the image below, both debris piles have conjoined. Alta Central was informed of the slide. Thanks to the Wasatch Powderbird guides who were over on northern Main Days paying attention and communicated with us to ensure that we were all safe and clear. Forecaster note: Great communication!