Avalanche: Salt Lake

Observer Name
Matt Hart
Observation Date
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Avalanche Date
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Main Days
Elevation
10,400'
Aspect
North
Slope Angle
35°
Trigger
Skier
Trigger: additional info
Intentionally Triggered
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Weak Layer
Surface Hoar
Depth
8"
Width
30'
Vertical
200'
Comments

I found that yellow dotted pocket of moderate avy danger today. We were on a ridge just above a convex slope with two previously skied gullies on either side at 10,400ft in elevation. Previous skiers had caused sluff slides of the top 4” that laid on top of a sun crust. It looked boney. Our first skier skied the gully to the left and hit a big rock. I decided to ski cut the top of the convex on my way over to ski the right gully. A previous skier had hit rocks and ski cut the same convex before me (we could see his track) while apparently changing his mind on which gully to ski. I was actually ski cutting above his track and sort of bouncing to put a bit of extra weight on it when the top 8 inches broke 30 feet wide on the convex and ran down 200 feet through the trees below and uncovering rocks. I happened to catch most of it on video.

Having a look at the crown I found: 3" of fist density on top of a 1/2" crust that gave way to 4 finger density for about 4 more inches until the weak layer of small to medium fragile facet snow on which it ran (updated thanks Brett! - see updated photos below).

Comments

Forecaster Note: I visited this avalanche on Dec 19. The "buried hoar flakes" that Matt referred to were small to medium sized buried facets. I was not able to identify any surface hoar in the crown or flank. I've attached a couple of photos below of the grains that acted as the weak layer. Kobernik

Video
Coordinates