Observation Date
1/5/2026
Observer Name
Dani
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Mill D North
Location Name or Route
Mill D North
Comments
Traveled up Mill D after getting thwarted at Guardsman since it still hadn’t been plowed by 11:45am and cars were stuck in the middle of the turn off. Skies were mostly overcast with a few moments of broken skies, winds remained light for the duration of our tour (noonish-2PM with no evidence of blowing snow, even at the top of Toms. It was actively graupelling, ranging from S-1 to S1 rates.
We dug a quick pit on a NE slope at 8,600 near Toms but didn’t have the tools for a proper isolation test with us. HS averaged about 90cm where we dug. There were ~4 crusts but nothing as stout as the CERC in upper elevations and the bottom 30cm of the snowpack was quite damp with no notable failures on an isolated column (again we didn’t have a clean isolation so this could be skewed). Maybe the dampness at the base will cause the crusts to consolidate into a nice bonded layer? I’m not sure. I am admittedly bad at grain type identification and didn’t have a loupe with me, but most of the grains in the bottom 30cm looked to be a mix between rounding facets and clustered melt forms.
On the tour up, we noticed a few sluffs into the creek of the skintrack on the east side (west-facing).
Coordinates
