Observation Date
11/28/2019
Observer Name
Wilson, Hardesty
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline
Location Name or Route
PC Ridgeline
Comments
Three failure planes in the pit, shown above. Upper was mid-storm stellars, perhaps between Monday and Wednesday. Middle layer had visible near surface facets and surface hoar (noted at surface on Sunday), and was the culprit in 2 different several-hundred-foot-wide propagations. Bottom layer was larger facets under the crust.
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Toured from 8,900' at Guardsman to 9,800' at Scott's/PC Ridgeline, and experienced collapses at all elevations. The most impressive collapse was on a high elevation north facing slope. But importantly, we had a small collapse on WNW facing at 9,800'. Would have been easy to write-off west aspects since they don't have basal facets from early season snow, but last week's 6 inches formed small NSFs that got buried under this recent storm. Especially with the SE winds we've had, high elevation west might still deserve attention.
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Below: pictures of crack that opened after impressive woomph. Dug down in several locations, each showed the same layering: failure was above a crust, in the snow that fell and faceted last week. NOT in the larger facets below the crust, which had seemed weaker in our test pit.
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Below: Shots of South Monitor. Blue arrow in third picture shows piece of snow that came out with same remote trigger.
Below: A couple pics from various crown locations to show that the failure plane was in the same weak snow above the crust.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
None
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None
Coordinates