UDOT PLANNED AVALANCHE CLOSURES!!

Avalanche: Superior

Observer Name
Owen Gehling
Observation Date
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Avalanche Date
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Superior
Location Name or Route
Superior S Face
Elevation
10,000'
Aspect
South
Slope Angle
40°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Unintentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Wet Loose
Avalanche Problem
Wet Snow
Caught
1
Carried
1
Comments
We climbed from cardiff and topped out on superior just after 1030am, and decided that we were okay to ski the south face even though it had been super warm all morning. We dropped in around 1045, and found wind and sun affected snow on the upper section. The snow got more consistent, and wetter, as we got farther down. I ducked into an unskied chute to skier's right of the main descent route. I wish I had a better way of describing where this is, but it was a super fun chute. 40 degrees plus for a couple hundred feet with a choke 2/3 of the way down, wide enough for skis. The stoke was running high and I did a very poor job of managing the slough. About halfway down I got knocked to my bum trying to make a turn, and then carried ~50 feet (through the choke) by the slough. Totally uninjured, I wasted ten minutes looking for a pole that had gotten carried 100 feet below me and partially buried.