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Avalanche: Argenta

Observer Name
S. Aronstein
Observation Date
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Avalanche Date
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Kessler Peak » Argenta
Location Name or Route
Argenta
Elevation
10,100'
Aspect
Northwest
Trigger
Natural
Depth
Unknown
Width
50'
Comments
Saw a large fall of snow over the east side cliff band of the Argenta headwall area that appeared to be triggered by something natural above. We heard a loud boom and then saw quite a bit of snow coming over the cliff - likely runout from an avalanche above. This photo was towards the tail end when it was less intense - all in all snow was coming down for probably 30-40 seconds. We were on the other side of the Argenta slide path when it happened and didn't want to get any closer, so not entirely sure what it hit/how far it ran below, but if you were on the skin track near it you probably would have had a bad time at the minimum.
Snow in general was more reactive than we expected - saw a small slide on the north facing headwall (appeared to be natrual, though not immediately recent) and we had quite a bit of sluffing on our descent. Below ~8500' things got very warm and sticky and we triggered some roller balls with our skiing.
Coordinates