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Avalanche: White Pine

Observer Name
Lew Hitchner, Doyle Dow, John Kennington
Observation Date
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Avalanche Date
Friday, December 16, 2016
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
Dog Dish in upper White Pine Canyon
Elevation
9,800'
Aspect
Northeast
Slope Angle
38°
Trigger
Natural
Trigger: additional info
Cornice Triggered
Avalanche Type
Hard Slab
Avalanche Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Weak Layer
Depth Hoar
Depth
Unknown
Width
150'
Vertical
700'
Comments
We skied Dog Dish about 2 PM in the afternoon of Tues. the 20th. An obvious large natural avalanche had occurred down the full length of the main, NE facing slope and had funneled into the choke point gully at the bottom. The slide ran all the way to the flat spot where most skiers exit the Dog Dish and Spire areas. Our guess was that the slide occurred at the start of or during the last big snowfall the weekend of the 16th and 17th because the avalanche debris was pretty well buried, though the biggest chunks (3' to 5') were protruding as if they were big boulders. There were no skis tracks down the Dog Dish run prior to ours. We could just barely see the fracture line that was about 200' above where we entered Dog Dish at 9,600'. But, it appeared to be just below the NE to East facing cliff bands atop Dog Dish. Because of the distance to the fracture line and because it was well covered by the storm snow we could not estimate its depth. Whether or not it was triggered by a cornice fall is just a guess. We could not tell if it ran to the ground because of the deep covering of storm snow. This avalanche's starting zone was a little less than 1 mile West of and about 1,000' lower than the Birthday Chutes slide that occurred on Monday the 19th. It was NE facing rather than NW facing. It ran close to the same length as the Birthday Chutes slide, but was much narrower due to the bowl and gullies that constricted it.
Coordinates