UDOT PLANNED AVALANCHE CLOSURES!!

Observation: Red Pine Gulch

Observation Date
3/20/2018
Observer Name
mark white
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Red Pine Gulch
Location Name or Route
Red Pine Gulch
Weather
Sky
Scattered
Wind Speed
Calm
Weather Comments
High thin clouds in the AM, blue skies in the afternoon, clouding up again around 4PM. Not much wind, and fairly warm.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Dense Loose
Wind Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

Dry dense snow still intact, on high elevation NE,N,and NW, either a melt-freeze crust or damp on SW,S,E and W depending on time of day, lower elevations remained damp, and a bit of wind crust in the high alpine.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Rapid Warming
Poor Snowpack Structure
Comments

Went to take a look at Red Pine Gulch today, I was surprised at the lack wet activity on the W facing from yesterday, but today more than made up for it with some decent sized wet slide occurring in the afternoon on the W facing, and some spectacular point releases coming off the cliff bands. I think the high clouds this morning kept the E facing in check but the sun came out in the afternoon and heated up the W facing. The new snow remained dry on the N end of the compass in the high alpine with boot deep penetration in the settled powder. I noted some storm snow avalanches that occurred during the storm but nothing appeared to go into deeper layering. No collapsing or cracking was experienced today and many steep lines were skied with out incident. Kinda funny that it's the first day of spring and there's finally enough snow to actually ski in the high alpine on the south side of LCC.

Photos: The thin line between dry snow and damp snow, damp on W dry on NW, some microwave sized debris on W facing, wet activity that occurred this afternoon on the W facing around 3:00pm

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