Observation: Davenport Hill

Evan

Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Davenport Hill

Davenport Hill

Dug a pit at the top of Davenport Hill at roughly 10,100 ft. 100º E facing. HS 50cm, ECTP15. Catastrophic failure from a combination of new snow and wind slab on top of the facet layer at the ground. The facet layer here is about 6" deep roughly (from the ground up). No precise measurement on my part, just eyeballs. High up close to the ridge top, we found a wind slab that varied in stoutness, but was noticeable on most lee slopes from the storm earlier this weekend. This wind loaded layer and the new storm snow together formed quite the thick slab, which collapsed on the ground facets and propagated all the way through our extended column on tap 15 (elbow tap 5). We headed back the way we came, and felt a noticeable decrease in wind slab presence when we descended just about 100ft below the ridge line. We then opted to move to a more southerly slope that ended up skiing great, with much less cohesion in the slab mentioned above. Apologies for the poor audio in the video, but the visuals communicate the data.

Considerable

Considerable