Observation: Butler Fork

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Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Butler Fork

Butler Fork

Went up Butler Fork today, down low your basically walking on dirt with new light density snow covering it. There was about 8 inches of new light density snow from last night and mostly this morning. The old surface of the snow had seized up with the cold temperatures and skinning up steep slopes was not the answer, slick and icy comes to mind. Dug a quick pit at 9400ft, NE facing, protected and shady, this slope has not run this season. Found 8 inches of low density snow on top of a stout 4 to 5 inch rain crust, underlying that was saturated facets down to the dirt. The stout crust alone seems like it’s not going to collapse even with the weight of a semi truck. The facets under the crust was completely saturated and when it seizes up wil be like a brick, or in other words not a weak layer anymore. that’s as high as i got today so the information is for this elevation. The only activity noted in the new snow was sluffing on the steeper slopes on the slick bed surface. S didn’t go off today due to cold temperatures and cloud cover but i’d be wary of fast moving sluffs and slides on the S facing tomorrow with the sun predicted to come out, and if you get caught up in one of these it’s gonna be moving fast and gathering snow because of the slick bed surface.

Moderate

Moderate