Observation Date
3/10/2015
Observer Name
mark white
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Red Pine
Location Name or Route
Red Pine
Weather
Sky
Clear
Wind Speed
Calm
Weather Comments
Warm but not to bad if you dressed light, not much wind to speak of.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Melt-Freeze Crust
Damp
Comments

Went to Red Pine in search of one more day of dry snow before the big heat up, was a little bit surprised by how much dry snow there was. I was just expecting to see the dense dry creamy snow on shady north facing but ended up finding it on open sun exposed slopes facing NE and almost E, thankfully we've had a string of cold clear nights that are doing a good job of recytalization of the new snow from last week. It was warm today but did not note much wet activity, I think the snow pack has cooked out and like Bruce stated the plumbing is in place, notice lots of runneling on S, SW, SE and W and it seems that most of the major wet activity has already occurred. Did not note any collapsing or weak snow in the high alpine, but allot of the terrain I was skiing had already avalanched early in the storm. I did find these long running cracks in the snow up by the lake and in the bottom of the drainage, I'm calling them settlement cracks because it looks like some of the snow crusted soon after the storm and the settlement of the low density powder underneath caused the crust to crack because it lost its underlying support. Photos, settlement crack, Avalanche activity during the last storm, wet activity that must have occurred a few days ago, still some dense, dry and creamy.

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