Observation: West Desolation Ridge

I.Tabor, M.Maier, J.Haffener AAI Rec Lvl 2

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Mill D North » West Desolation Ridge

Desolation Ridge Aspens

We went up Beartrap fork, skied Beartrap Glades then went up towards Desolation ridge and skied down the low angle ridge through the aspens and out Mill D. We dug a pit on a West aspect at 9100 and found a poor structure but unconcerning results with a PST and ECT. As we kept going down and under the West Desolation Ridge we heard multiple thundering tree shaking collapses, after the fifth loud collapse we dug down and found a layer of buried surface hoar 60cm down in a 120cm total depth of snow. The surface hoar was linked, cupped, and up to an inch long. Lower down we did get an ECTP 23 (SC) on a very low angle north facing slope at 8600 which broke 60cm down on the f- facets above a pencil hard slab of new snow. The slide off West Desolation Ridge is impressive.

Considerable

Considerable