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Observation: Porter Fork

Observation Date
12/27/2012
Observer Name
Fred
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Millcreek Canyon
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Weather Comments
Generally light snow all day with very little wind.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
8"
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
I'd say 8" on top of the 20 inches that have fallen since Monday. Maybe more. Trail breaking was easier at lower elevations but when you got up to higher elevations, trail breaking was knee-deep and often a wallow. You needed to be on a steeper slope to get going on skis. Hate to complain, but the new snow was too deep. It will be better tomorrow after the new snow has settled a bit--both going uphill and downhill. New snow is well behaved. Some sluffing observed from sliding off of rocks or trees dropping snow load on steep pitches with sluff running not far and not entraining much new snow and not stepping down at all.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Heavy Snowfall
Red Flags Comments
Lots of new snow staying in place. Still a problem with deep buried facets below a somewhat stout crust. However must mention because at time the column could not be isolated and would fail on this layer.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments
See pic of snow pit. Yes, there is still faceted snow buried at depth and just like what everyone has been saying these past few weeks, the layer is quite spatially variable. It not has several stouter layers on top of it so it is bridging and slowly gaining strength. But our snowpits continued to be inconsistent. Sometimes it was easy to get column tests to fail but Extended Column Tests were stubborn with a Q2 shear. No collapsing felt during the day. New snow is very low density so it does not seem to weigh enough to reactivate the deeper faceted layers except in localized areas, but we did not see any of those pockets in this area.
Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Problem #2 Comments
If wind were to blow there is PLENTY of snow to be moved around.