Observation Date
1/4/2026
Observer Name
Stauss, Williams, White
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Silver Fork » West Bowl
Location Name or Route
West Bowl, Silver Fork
Comments
Our tour today was up the Emma's and along the ridge to ski West Bowl. Throughout the tour we had an obscured sky and moderate winds, with a couple of stronger gusts here and there. The main feature of the weather was graupel, graupel everywhere (mostly small form). It graupeled throughout our entire tour. The wind and graupel helped smooth out riding conditions and the CERC was only noted when I dug down and found it. On the Emma's skinner, that was just a 8-12 inches or so down; near the bottom of West Bowl, around 9600, the crust was down 40cm. Total HS there was 75cm. I dug a hasty hand pit on the Emma's, curious how the dense snow was sitting on the crust, and the block did not pull away.
Seeing some of the other obs from today reinforces a couple of things for me: the avalanche problems are strange and spatially variable, and adding widespread graupel to the mix before a big load could make it interesting. Felt nice to have a good dose of winter though.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None
Coordinates
