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Observation: Mineral Fork

Observation Date
3/5/2025
Observer Name
Manship & Collett
Region
Salt Lake » Mineral Fork
Location Name or Route
Mineral Fork
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Precipitation
Moderate Snowfall
Weather Comments
The morning was beautiful. Warm temps, light winds, and good skiing. Around 10:00am the sun came out for a little while and was very intense. East, southeast, and south took on heat and turned to hot pow. There will be a crust there tomorrow. Snow started falling at 1pm and gradually picked up intensity. Temps were warm, likely a little under freezing and above freezing at trailheads.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
8"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
Generally riding conditions are all time. At low elevation in big cottonwood there was maybe 4" of new snow. Mid and upper elevations had about 7-8" of new snow with some deeper. In many areas there was a firm bed surface underneath the new snow, you could feel it skiing but it wasn't terrible.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Rapid Warming
Red Flags Comments
The only red flag we discussed was rapid warming when the strong March sun came out; however, this was short lived and was not much of an issue. Other than that we did not see any red flags.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
New Snow
Trend
Decreasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments
There was evidence of natural dry loose activity, but it was likely from yesterday. We were suprised by how well bonded the recent snow felt to the snow surface below. We did some ski cutting and pushing on convexities and the snow was locked in.
Snow Profile
Aspect
Northwest
Elevation
8,900'
Slope Angle
23°
Comments
We dug around 1 meter down to see how the new snow was bonding and what the old snow surface looked like. Most obvious is how dirty the recent snow came on. The dirty snow is in face snow, not the crust and was full of dirt decomposing particles.
Under the dirty snow is a crust, and underneath the crust are 1mm rounding facets. Moving down we found a generally rightside up snowpack with an impresively hard slab.
ECTN12 under the crust.
At this point the new snow seems to have bonded well with the old snow.
Overall it was a beautiful, quiet day in the Wasatch, we did not observe signs of instability in the areas that we travelled.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None
Coordinates