Eric Flygare

Logan » Bear River » Cache Valley Foothills

East Bench

I had a couple of hours today to get out so I ran up one of the canyons on the East bench for a tour. There was only 12-16 inches of faceted snow on the North facing slopes around 6200 ft. The snow was faceted from top to bottom with one icy layer down about 6 inches which has also faceted and is breakable. Everything is faceted and loose so there is no slab. The snow is punchy but since it is so shallow you don't wallow around too much. I considered the avalanche danger to be pretty low on the slopes at this aspect and elevation. The riding was decent if you could find grassy slopes to ride on. There was still evidence of avalanches from the storm two weeks ago. Two old slides were observed, approximately 40 feet wide and had run 400 vertical feet. The interesting thing was that they had run on a 30 degree and 34 degree slope. Other signs of instability were old filled in cracks near the wind drifted ridgelines and old saggy snow from the 11 January storm.

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