Observation: Little Cottonwood Canyon

Observation Date

1/7/2026

Observer Name

Kelly, Kelly, Miller

Region

Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon

Location Name or Route

Upper Cottonwoods

Weather

Sky

Overcast

Precipitation

Light Snowfall

Wind Direction

Southwest

Wind Speed

Light

Weather Comments

Overcast skies with a cloud deck sitting around 9,900'. Light snow that was rimed above 9,900' and not rimed below the cloud deck.

Snow Characteristics

New Snow Density

Medium

Snow Surface Conditions

Powder

Wind Crust

Snow Characteristics Comments

Snow surface was soft on northerly facing slopes and on south and west facing slopes there was a breakable solar crust. There were some stiffer wind drifts along the ridgelines above 10,500' in elevation, but we didn't observe and cracking or collapsing in these drifts.

We looked for, but didn't find any of the surface hoar that was visible on the surface yesterday afternoon.

Photo of rimed crystals in the cloud deck above 9,900' (above) and of light riming on the trees (below)

Photo of crystals around 9,100' (below) underneath the cloud deck

Avalanche Problem #1

Problem

Persistent Weak Layer

Problem #1 Comments

We went out to see what we could find for avalanche activity from the January 5 avalanche cycle. With the heavy clouds we couldn't see much. We did observe that last storm cycle some of the avalanches were likely running on a storm interface that was 10cm-20cm ( 4"-8") off of the Chrismtas Crust.

The facets that are underneath the crust and the interface just above the crust, kept us off of steep north and east facing terrain, and the breakable solar crust kept us off of south and west facing terrain. We found great travel on lower angle north and east facing slopes.

Where we traveled today the avalanche danger was Moderate.

Today's Observed Danger Rating

Moderate

Coordinates

Observation: Little Cottonwood Canyon

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