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Observation: Salt Lake

Observation Date
11/7/2013
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Catherine Pass between Alta and Brighton
Weather
Sky
Broken
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Mostly scattered clouds with sunshine in the morning with a weak disturbance in the afternoon with light snow above 10,000' and light rain below about 9,500'.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

Still some soft powder on north facing slopes above about 9,500' but damp snow below that elevation. There is very little snow on south facing slopes and about 2 feet on upper elevation north facing slopes. There is some wind damage on the very exposed slopes above 10,000'.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
Although the snow profiles on north facing slopes around 10,000' were occasionally producing propagating fractures on Extended Column tests, the tests were inconsistent from place to place. So there is a lot of spatial variability in this early season snowpack. People were getting away with skiing many of the north facing steep slopes in the area without triggering avalanches. So I suspect that most of the slopes are dormant at this time due to lack of recent loading with the exception of some of the higher terrain that had some wind loading in the past couple days.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
New Snow
Trend
Decreasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments

There is a buried layer of depth hoar under almost all of the north through east facing terrain above about 10,000'. It is quite inconsistent from place to place and it appears to be mostly dormant in most areas as people are skiing many of the slopes without incident with the exception of a human triggered avalanche two days ago on Baldy Shoulder from recent wind loading on that weak layer.

Video
Coordinates