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Observation: Red Pine Gulch

Observation Date
3/16/2013
Observer Name
Brackelsberg
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Red Pine/Dry Fork/Maybird
Weather
Sky
Few
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Light
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Wind Crust
Melt-Freeze Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

I pretty much had the full gamut of snow conditions. The ascent up Red Pine and the Red Pine Ridge to Pfieferhorn were frozen solid. The descent from Pfieferhorn into Dry Fork had all conditions from frozen at the to corn to soft snow where I stopped to skin back up. By 11:30AM the south facing snow was already mush. The north facing open aspects were dense loose snow with breakable crusts lower down on the north aspects in the protected trees.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Recent Avalanches
Rapid Warming
Red Flags Comments
I was back to the trailhead by noon before any of the red flags were an issue.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wet Snow
Trend
Decreasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments

The west facing slopes of Red Pine Canyon below Red Pine Lake have all slid to the ground and have large debris piles within a few feet of the skin track. These aspect always slide, but the debris piles were larger than I remember in the past.

With the cool down in the forecast (20F) tomorrow, this risk will decrease quickly.

Comments

No photos as when I took my phone out to take photos of the debris in Red Pine, it had gone dead.

It was an extremely quiet day. I didn't see another skier from when I left the trail head until I got back to the Red Pine/White Pine junction on my way out where a group of 3 skiers were heading towards White Pine (possibly a bad day for a late start)