Joe Campanelli

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Days Fork » The Fang

Fang (Days Fork)

10,000'

North

36°

Skier

Unintentionally Triggered

Soft Slab

Wind Drifted Snow

New Snow/Old Snow Interface

6"

20'

250'

After some slippery skinning up Emma we reached the ridge. The winds at the ridge line were howling WNW (Avg 15-20mph - Gusts 30-40mph) We skied a West Bowl into Silver Fork (delicious). A lot of previous tracks were starting to fill in because of wind. On the skin up, we tested some of the newly formed cornices hanging over into West Bowl. There was not much action there, but one did crack into the older cornice(nothing ran). When we reached the top, we were deciding between Jaws, Fang and Oingo. We knew a wind slab had been triggered the day previous in Fang. So more than likely we would only be dealing with a new wind slab from night into the morning. It also appeared a sizable wind slab had been triggered in Jaws yesterday 3/10, ran a couple hundred feet and there were three exiting tracks (speculation though/did not see a report). We decided to use the skiers left entrance into Fang for a change of pace. We cut some fresh wind snow at the top with no results. As the first skier headed into the side entrance, he made a few cuts, again with no results and skied out. The second skier in made it about halfway in and got both walls to release there snow. He skied off to the side and let it run. It ended up running bigger and further than expected. Unfortunately, it was very low light and blowing, so it was difficult to get any pictures. Heading back into LCC, we went to ski/see if Toledo Chute had some loading/cross-loading. We ski cut on a crunchy bed surface - there was almost no wind blown snow. Not having much time or other options, we crunched that groove and built character all the way down.