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Observation Date
12/28/2012
Observer Name
Kikkert
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Butler Fork
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Weather Comments
Light snowfall all morning, about 2 inches of very light density snow by noon.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
Impressive snow totals, about 2 feet of low density fluff from the past few days.
Snow Profile
Aspect
North
Elevation
9,400'
Slope Angle
32°
Comments

Travel was Butler Fork to Wilson Peak. Wilson Chutes looked tempting but willing to give them a little more time, especially considering how well south facing skied. Could get a little sluffing on steep rollovers, but not moving far, otherwise most new snow instabilities seemed to have settled out. Dug along the ridgeline between Wilson and Soldier forks. Pit was north facing and close to the ridgeline, so snowpack was deeper and stronger due to wind loading than I think can be expected for the area as a whole, but overall looked pretty good with rounding starting to occur around the rain crust and no clean sheers in CTs and no propagation in ECTs. However, member of party did later trigger a slide while assessing the snowpack on a similar aspect into Alexander Basin (submitted separately). Good illustration of both the limitation of making conclusions from a single snowpit, as well as biases that can occur based on where the pit is dug.

Coordinates