Observation Date
1/27/2013
Observer Name
Kim
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
LCC - Silver Fork East to West Bowl
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Heavy Snowfall
Wind Direction
Southwest
Wind Speed
Strong
Weather Comments
Good vis. then limited visibility..storm conditions, snow and moderate to heavy winds/gusts, came in fast.
Started skinning at 9:30am..storm came in around 10:15? We left when it was really picking up on ridges/bowls, but back @ parking lot quite pleasant.
Face riming, skins flapping, flat lighting, storm skiing...halleluiah!
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
3"
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
Light density powder, guessing on depth as the wind pre-occupied me and it was being transported, also I am bad w/ #s.
Skiing out Emma Ridge to car had the most wind transported snow, from a few inches to a foot blown in.
We skied/skinned almost the same exact places yesterday and ours/others ski tracks/skin tracks appeared mostly covered, wind recycled pow it seemed, as it hadn't snowed that that deep yet.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Heavy Snowfall
Wind Loading
Cracking
Collapsing
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
Collapsing while breaking trail/(and collapsing for following skinner) up west bowl. A little cracking, hardly mentionable.
We skied a north facing run East Bowl and new snow was manageably sluffing on surface (steeper sections). We skied same run yesterday, today deeper/sluffier (it's all relative, it wasn't deep).
We skied a variety of aspects/angles Saturday from Twin lakes pass to solitude ridgeline? Davenport along east bowl to west bowl, and nothing alarming. I've only lived here a year, so pardon if I don't know if that tour has a better name.
Today in same locations we noticed a lot of manageable sluffing (wind transported, light density snow) while making turns on crusts on both sides of Emma Ridge/East bowl/west bowl areas.
This was not the case yesterday w/ the thinner new snow & we hit a lot of old hard tracks yesterday returning from Emma Ridge. Hardly any today (slightly different fall line today as our car was parked in a different location).
Crust under new snow was supportable when skiing, but when skinning poking poles around they punched through easily into faceted/weak snow in many places.
Comments
Over the last two days we skied everything from 2 inches on breakable sun crust to excellent powder on supportable smooth.
When you have a great ski partner, you can really get stoked on a few inches!
