Observation Date
12/17/2020
Observer Name
DFVSP
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Emma Ridges
Location Name or Route
Emma’s ridges days/silver headwall
Comments
Headed up Joey 2 (Emma .5.. we named the ten Emma ridges after local hero Joey camps from west to East flagstaff is 0) at about 3 pm
Noted a 20' wide crown in the binxs gully east facing. Cracks and small wind skiffs broke out on the ascent but once we were in the starting zones the surface was mostly scoured back to rocks and grass.
Once on the ridge, we noticed that cornices were just beginning to reform after failing naturally and the snowfall rate was increasing. Initially all we saw were storm sluffs running short distances.
Further along, approaching the top of Emma 1 (Joey 3) we noticed another party had traveled perhaps an hour+ previous and had no effect on the large low angle convexity. We stepped onto the slope and remotely triggered the slope 100' to the East. This avalanche included all of this week's snow and was 10-20" deep and wrapped around the top maybe 60' wide with another two smaller pockets headed east.
We then triggered an interesting avalanche into oingo in which I started a storm sluff from just today's snow. My partner then triggered a 10' wide slab to the ground adjacent to the first sluff. Cool to see the small change in aspect/steepness/wind effect cause a much different slide. I feel that this slide was representative of our timing as the storm slab grew but wasn't quite connected enough to cause larger avalanches.
As it was getting dark we decided to leave the skins on and descend Joey 8 (Emma 3). At 5pm the south facing was unskiable but I bet it will be quite a bit more supportive as the night rages on. There was twice as much snow on the benches and in the aspens as there was up top.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Considerable
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
High