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Observation: Guardsman Pass area

Observation Date
12/20/2025
Observer Name
John Lemnotis
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Guardsman Pass area
Location Name or Route
Lanes leap
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Wind Direction
Southwest
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Winds were light to moderate but not moving much of the dense storm snow today.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
4"
New Snow Density
High
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Red Flags
Red Flags
Cracking
Collapsing
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
A new load has been introduced to the snowpack with the from Wednesday through last night and we now have a slab on top of the basal facets as well as faceting mid snow pack at mid and upper elevations. This along with some wind loading has caused the snowpack to have to adjust again. Today we noted several collapses on the W ridge that approaches 10410 along with some minor cracking.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments

The basal (facets closest to the ground) have shown some signs of healing when measuring temperature gradients in the snowpack but this process is slow. There is still plenty of reactivity on this layer and it will likely continue to be active with more loading events. Patience is a virtue. The video that is linked is the ECT that we performed in an area where we experienced a collapse after getting off the skin track. This location was slightly SE of Lanes Leap.

Video
Coordinates

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