Observation: Days Fork

Observation Date
2/10/2018
Observer Name
Greg Gagne
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Days Fork
Location Name or Route
Days Fork
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Great to be out in seasonal weather once again! Gusty northwest winds and temps at minus 10C (10F) along ridge tops. Bursts of S1 snowfall.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
2"
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Wind Crust
Snow Characteristics Comments

An optimistic ~5 cms of storm snow. Some sensitive shallow pockets of fresh wind drifts along ridges. Low-density storm snow would sluff easily on steep slopes.

Good riding conditions on slopes with a northerly aspect.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Poor Snowpack Structure
Comments

Travel was Days Fork from Spruces. It has been two weeks since I've been in Days Fork, and was expecting to find a better-looking snowpack. There is 90-150 cms HS upcanyon from Chicken Shit Ridge and beyond. In several places we dug on northwest through northeast, very weak faceted snow down near the ground, with a 4F/1F stronger slab on top. (John Mletshnig was also finding this poor structure in Days Fork on 2/9)

Although we were finding the poor structure, we could not get any ECTs to propagate (ECTX). However, John was getting ECTP21 on buried facets, and a party we encountered coming down Days from Alta reported ECTP15.

Video below is a description of what we were finding, and how the poor structure influenced our decisions today. (Summary - poor structure with consequences below had us change plans to other terrain.) Similar story to Drew and Zinnia's observation from Broads Fork the previous day. (Poor script writers - I think I mentioned "not crazy about the structure" and 5 times!)

Video

Otherwise, the only item of interest was sluffing in the storm snow. This sluff ran approximately 300'.

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Low
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Low