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Observation: White Pine

Observation Date
3/18/2016
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
White Pine
Weather
Sky
Clear
Wind Direction
West
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Clear and cool with a moderate wind from the west that kept things chilly, despite the warming temperatures.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Wind Crust
Melt-Freeze Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

The wind and sun have done their usual damage to the snow surface but there's still about 6 inches of nice, soft, dry, settled powder on the wind and sun sheltered slopes. It seems like the east facing slopes had the least amount of wind damage, but several northerly facing slopes were good too. I saw a party skiing the aprons of Red Baldy from under the cliffs and also a lone skier skinned up the north face of Lake Peak and booted to the summit and then skied Lake Peak Chute. Otherwise, there was not a lot of people in the upper bowl.

North through east facing slopes still had some soft, dry, settled powder as long as you could stay in wind sheltered areas.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Rapid Warming
Red Flags Comments
Mostly low danger with some areas you might consider to be Moderate where there was wind drifts, occasional funky graupel layers and some minor rollerballs on steep, east and west facing slopes.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wet Snow
Problem #1 Comments

Probably the biggest problem in the next few days is the loose, wet slides from the expected warming. It has been cold and windy for several days and the north and east facing slopes will be experiencing a thaw for the first time. Here's several photo from an east facing slope just under 10,000':

Roller balls on east facing slopes that probably occurred yesterday but it was cold and windy enough today to lock it up again.

Exhibit A

Loose wet slides have covered a skin track that was probably put in yesterday. But with a cold wind blowing the snowpack was locked up again today so we decided to follow the track anyway.

Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
New Snow
Problem #2 Comments

I poked around quite a bit in the surface layers looking for some of the funky layers that have been producing slabs these past few days. I could not find anything suspicious but occasionally, I could find some graupel pooling buried about a foot or two down that was slabby but not very reactive. I could not find any of the faceted layers described by Mark White in Cardiac Ridge a couple days ago. So I'm hoping that it's an isolated phenomenon.

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate