Ad
The National Forest Service Logo
icon-add Observation
Forecasts
Logan Ogden Salt Lake Provo Uintas Skyline Moab Abajos Weather Archives How to read the forecast
Observations & Avalanches
Submit Observation Observations Explorer All Observations Avalanches Fatalities Weather Place Names Map Archives
Education
Avalanche Class List UAC Class List Online Classes Resources and Tutorials Avalanche Awareness Develop Skills
Events
Store
About
Contact Who we are Core Values Staff Board of Directors Past Forecasters Sponsors Annual Reports Sign In
Blog
icon-add Observation
Donate / Join

Observation: Red Pine Gulch

Observation Date
3/9/2014
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Red Pine
Location Name or Route
Red Pine to upper headwall
Weather
Sky
Scattered
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Out skiing with my wife on our day off. Scattered high clouds but beautiful. Very warm.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Melt-Freeze Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

Everything wet except northerly facing above about 9,000' where there was some nice, settled powder from a few days ago.

Red Flags
Red Flags Comments
No red flags. Everything pretty solid and a lot of larger lines getting tracked. The Moderate danger ratings are for wet activity in the afternoon and for some possible, lingering wind slabs in the upper elevation, wind exposed terrain. But I think most of the terrain will be low danger by Monday because of the expected cloud cover.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wet Snow
Problem #1 Comments

The very warm daytime temperature with sun and high clouds keep things wet on the sun exposed slopes. But most of the slopes seemed well behaved because they already heated up yesterday and today was just more of the same. Probably the worst aspects were lower elevation north faces where you would get some roller balls going and some loose wet snow and shallow, wet slabs.

Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Problem #2 Comments

There may be a few lingering wind slabs left in the high alpine terrain. We found some in the upper elevation, wind exposed terrain including just below the summit ridge but they were pretty settled.

Comments

I have not been into upper Red Pine since the large avalanche avalanche occurred in the east facing slope above Red Pine that probably occurred 9 days ago on March 1st (reported by me on March 2nd observation). It's pretty impressive and perhaps one of the largest avalanches I have ever seen in there.

It ran most of the way across Red Pine Lake and it must have sloshed it around a bit judging by the shoreline. The debris in the middle is composed of some large debris boulders in various shapes. I poked around on many of them to see if some of them were lake ice pressure ridges caused by the slide impact but they all seem to be just debris piles. I've included a few photos for posterity.

The photos are from various angles, which I hope are self explanitory.

1) Looking up at the fracture line from the big debris boulders that cover most of Red Pine Lake

2) Looking up at the fracture line, which must be about a quarter mile wide and 6 feet deep.

3) Looking down on the lake from just above the lake

4) including looking at the fracture line from near the ridgeline at the head of Red Pine.

5,6) Couple more looking down from above

7) Final one from the lake

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Low