Observation: White Pine

Observation Date
12/13/2023
Observer Name
John Lemnotis
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
White Pine
Weather
Sky
Scattered
Wind Direction
Southeast
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
A mostly sunny day today with light winds up to mid elevation terrain where we traveled. A felt a few moderate gusts but observed no snow being transported at mid elevations. However, ridgeline snow was visibly moving all day with winds coming from the SE primarily. Upper elevations especially exposed slopes are certainly wind affected.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Melt-Freeze Crust
Snow Characteristics Comments
Mid elevations that we traveled on facing NW, N, and NE held good dense powder. W facing snow surfaces were crusted to varying degrees depending on slope angle.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
Not a lot has changed with the PWL although there are many tracks across the range that may lead someone to think otherwise. We are in a low probability, high consequence scenario. We still have a thin snowpack with structure that is prime for avalanches (a slab on top of a weak layer) in many locations. More comments below.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments
I wanted to dig down in a couple of different locations today and see how the basal facets compared to other locations I have recently seen.
The first location was a NW aspect at 8900' HS 83cm ECTN, the facets on the ground were moist... It's a good sign that they are gaining strength but we still need more snow and a deeper snowpack to give the warm and fuzzies.
The second location was N at 9200' HS 110cm ECTP 30 SC. While this is a "strong" result these facets are dry 1-2mm and the crust that has been noted in other observations was breaking down. There were facets below the poorly defined crust. The structure is still poor, the snowpack is still relatively thin, and ECT's correlate well to human trigger avalanches. Polar aspects are still very suspect. The video below is of this pit.
Snow Profile
Aspect
North
Elevation
9,200'
Video
Today's Observed Danger Rating
None
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None
Coordinates