Observation Date
12/19/2012
Observer Name
Bill Nalli
Region
Provo
Location Name or Route
Bunnells Fork
Comments
A significant avalanche cycle occurred in the Southern Wasatch during the last few days. The majority of the slides happened late Monday night 12/15. This one in White Limbo in upper Bunnells Fork was approx. 500' wide and 3' deep, NE aspect. A storm total in the area of 40"of snow and 4-4.5" SWE fell on a variety of thin snowpacks with a rain crust present from about 8000' all the way to the ridges. The crust varies in thickness but so far everywhere I've looked it has 2-3mm facets both above and below it and is now buried about a meter below the surface. I suspect that many of the slides in this cycle failed at this weakness.
In all of the tests I performed, (only up to 9200') failure was at the facets above the crust, CT 25 and ECTP 20.
This is the next path to the north in Bunnells, Middle Bowl. Ridgeline elevation here is 10,800'. This one looks a bit deeper and involved older Nov. facets near the ground. NE aspect.
And then the next one further North, White Bimbo. East aspect.
Shot 6 in Slide Canyon, a SE aspect at 10,000'. A general theme in all of these slides is steep slope angles starting in thinner rocky areas.
The Gunsight S-E aspects at 10,200'. The runout for this one is the popular ice climbing area at Stewarts Falls.
