Observation Date
12/19/2020
Observer Name
P Diegel, C Gregerson
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Silver Fork » Meadows
Location Name or Route
Meadow Chutes
Comments
We didn't observe much wind loading but deliberately stuck to slopes mostly sheltered from westerly wind with very little fetch to strip snow from. While we saw some cracking and bonding was poor, the bulk of the meadows chutes didn't really appear to have enough of a slab to support propagation. The slides in the area reported from yesterday were not especially large or long-running and were on steeper slopes and getting dragged through and over hard objects seemed more of a threat than being buried. Good example of variability - the snow we saw was not well bonded to the pre-storm snow, but was not heavy or cohesive enough to fail in a big way. In the words of my partner, "It wants to slide but can't quite make it happen". More loading, whether due to greater snowfall or more snow available for transport, would likely have caused very different behavior. It was a good day to keep slope angles down and embrace meadow skipping.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Considerable
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Considerable
Coordinates