Avalanche: Cardiac Ridge

Observer Name
mark white
Observation Date
Friday, January 13, 2017
Avalanche Date
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Cardiff Fork » Cardiac Ridge
Location Name or Route
Cardiac
Elevation
10,700'
Aspect
East
Slope Angle
38°
Trigger
Natural
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Avalanche Problem
New Snow
Weak Layer
New Snow/Old Snow Interface
Depth
4'
Width
2,500'
Vertical
1,250'
Comments

This natural avalanche looked like it ran Wednesday night or Thursday morning, it had about 5 inches of light density on the bed surface. The slide went from Cardiac Pass in Cardiac Bowl, took out all of Hansen's and ran to Cardiac Ridge proper, a little over 1\3 of a mile according to goggle earth. The crown looked to be around 4ft but the part of it by Cardiac pass was up to 6ft, it ran full track down to the flats and in a couple places almost to the sub ridge dividing Cardiff Fork. Of note it totally plastered the usual route up to Cardiac Bowl, the small treed ridge under Hansen's taking out small trees and burying the rest in hard debris. Not sure of the weak layer but the location of the crown tends to support that it pulled out on graupel that had rolled down from the cliffs and pooled then were buried buy the W-SW winds loading the E facing aspect, just my theory. It also triggered avalanches on the roll over of Cardiac Bowl.

Photos: The Crown which I couldn't get all of it in one photo, trees on the sub-ridge with debris, looking down the avalanche path, turns in debris after investigation. Flat light made Photos hard to get.