Join us at our 2nd Annual Blizzard Ball
Ad
The National Forest Service Logo
icon-add Observation
Forecasts
Logan Ogden Salt Lake Provo Uintas Skyline Moab Abajos Weather Archives How to read the forecast
Observations & Avalanches
Submit Observation Observations Explorer All Observations Avalanches Fatalities Weather Place Names Map Archives
Education
Avalanche Awareness Develop Skills On-Snow Courses Resources and Tutorials
Events
Store
About
Contact Who we are Core Values Staff Board of Directors Past Forecasters Sponsors Annual Reports Sign In
Blog
icon-add Observation
Donate / Join

Observation: Hells Canyon

Observation Date
12/22/2024
Observer Name
Kelly, Anders (Snowbasin)
Region
Ogden » Hells Canyon
Location Name or Route
Hells Canyon
Weather
Sky
Broken
Wind Speed
Calm
Weather Comments
Calm winds with broken (mostly cloudy, high clouds) skies. Warm temperatures above 32 °F.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Wind Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments
Snow surface was a mixed bag. Some damp snow on east and west facing at high elevations and some dry and wind board affected snow on north-east aspects. There was limited to no snow on mid and lower elevation terrain and on higher elevation south facing terrain.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Cracking
Collapsing
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
We observed poor snow structure in the snowpits we dug (see below) and we got cracking and collapsing on a north facing aspect at 8,900' in elevation when we were standing close to one another.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Problem #1 Comments
There were some isolated areas where we were able to trigger shallow (2"-4" deep ) wind drifts failing on faceted grains about 8' x 4' dimensionally and isolated to near ridgelines.
Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Snow Profile
Aspect
North
Elevation
8,900'
Slope Angle
34°
Comments
We dug two snowpits in the upper reaches of Hells Canyon. Both snowpits had poor structure. The north facing snowpit at 8,960' had weaker dryer snow and was the more interesting of the 2 snowpits (upper photos). This was a thinner snowpack just under 2' (56cm) in depth. If we were to get more snow in the future the thought would be we would see two failures. One near the surface 8" (20cm) from the top and a second failure 4" (10cm) from the ground.
The second snowpit on a northeasterly aspect had more of a slab. There was 14" (36cm) of wind slab over a melt freeze crust with moist facets underneath. These faceted grains were starting to show signs of rounding on the edges and our temperatures verified. In both pits we had propagation with extended column tests.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Low
Coordinates