Planned Website Outage: The UAC website will be down for maintenance on June 17 from 2:00 - 7:00 PM MT.

Observation: Bear Trap

Observation Date
1/11/2018
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Bear Trap
Location Name or Route
Beartrap
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Moderate
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Snow Characteristics Comments
New snow depth varies much more strongly with altitude than usual. There was just a skiff of snow near the road but perhaps 3 or 4 inches at the ridgetop. It's hard to believe that Brighton got 20 or more inches of snow, which was only about a mile away, but the southerly flow tends to do that. The very small amount of new snow turned nicely especially when combined with the near surface faceted snow just below it on shady aspects. Sunny exposures had dust on crust conditions.
Red Flags
Red Flags Comments
We did a quick trip to Beartrap just for exercise and a few safe turns. It's not the kind of place you go to find avalanches, and true to form, there seemed to be no avalanche potential there since there just wasn't enough new snow to overload anything. There was just a skiff of new snow at the trailhead and perhaps 3 to 4 inches along the ridge. Perhaps along the highest ridge, you might find enough wind loading to overload the buried faceted layers but we did not see any. Low danger where we were but obviously from the reports, there are places where more snow fell and/or more wind loading occurred. The danger rating I checked reflected what we found where we were and it is not a rating for other areas or terrain.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Decreasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments
See above.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Low
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Low