No Name Bowl1/27/2022 Haven’t put up an observation lately because the last 2 to 3 weeks has been benign for avalanche activity but it’s time for an update. Went to No Name Bowl today because it’s one of the places that facets out the fastest due to its mid elevation, N facing, shady and protected location. I was expecting some near surface faceting but not to the extent of what was seen today. Basically the whole snowpack has faceted out to the dirt with little to no cohesion. Long running sluffs could be initiated on the surface then gouge down into the bottom of the pack in the recrystallized loose snowpack. This isn’t much of a problem right now but it will become a problem when additional snow is added. Most places I have visited in the last few weeks are just faceted on the surface but in NN it’s completely rotted out. I would expect other areas to follow suit with the cold clear nights and no real storms in the forecast.
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Toots to Boot1/18/2022 Today we headed up the Bowman Fork trail in Millcreek Canyon in search of mid elevation recrystallized powder and found some. The lower elevations below 7500ft are mostly crusted. Above that elevation your either gonna find soft recrystallized powder on the wind and sun protected slopes on the N end of the compass, or windboard, sastrugi or suncrust in the more exposed areas up high or slopes on the S end of the compass. The hiking was a bit of work due to slick crusts and faceted snow on firm bed surfaces. It didn’t get warm enough to soften the lower elevation crust on the N facing gullies exiting out of Alexander Basin so some care was taken not to end up flying into the downed trees and bushes. Not much going on in snowpack stability, it’s mostly stable now but most slopes are primed with weak faceted snow on the surface of slick bed surfaces that will drastically effect the bonding of new snow. If it ever does snow.
White Baldy and Red Pine1/16/2022 Went to have a look at the alpine today, Redpine to White Baldy. The snow is still dry and creamy in very select, protected spots but overall the snow pack up high is a bit wind hammered and variable, sun crusts, wind crust and sastrugi. Not a whole lotta hazard out there right now except a possible slide for life and be ready for the trapdoor. There was a a big, older avalanche above Red Pine Lake which hit the lake and left a good debris pile. Kind of in a holding pattern, maybe corn or hopefully some storms.
Went up Broads Fork to the Diving Board and The Blue Ice today. There was only a trace of new snow on the old surface at the car at 6000ft which increased to boot deep at 9000ft. Most of the upper, open terrain in upper Broads Fork is wind damaged to some extent but still skiable. Wind crust and some scoured areas made the skiing a bit inconsistent but still fun. Noted at least three new avalanches since I was there last Monday. One was on a SE facing slope adjacent to Bonkers but it started on the NE rockslabs and poured out on the SE facing. Then there was a glide avalanche on the skiers left of the Diving Board which I call Old Reliable because it’s constantly shedding snow. The last and most recent slide was cause by a large ice fall breaking off the cliff band on the Blue Ice. This one left a debris field filled with hunks of clear ice as big as a washing machine or a microwave oven. The stability of the area traveled was high, mostly because a massive avalanche off the East Twin had cleaned the whole area out a few weeks ago and there hasn’t been much of load since and the only weak layer is the surface snow.
South monitor1/9/2022 Figured it was time to punch some steep N facing runs today. In the last 3 or 4 days the PWL at the bottom of the pack on the N end of the compass has become non reactive. No avalanches to this layer have been triggered by skiers or occurred naturally since last week. There have been some avalanches pried out at the resorts with the use of explosives, but that has nothing to do with the backcountry in my book. Skied S Monitor Bowl today on the PC Ridgeline. There was about 4 inches of light density snow sitting on a spongy base. Sluffing was present on the steeper pitches but not packing any kind of punch. Kinda wondering why no one was thinking about wet slides because they did occur today on steep S facing slopes. Lots of steeper lines on the N end of the compass have been skied with no activity. The low angle S and SW stayed dry today with the low sun angle and cold temperatures. Things are rapidly stabilizing and after the coming week of high pressure I’m pretty sure the hazard should be in the moderate category for the time being. Just my opinion.
Cardiff Fork1/8/2022 Figured it was time to go back to upper Cardiff and have a look around. Been a while since I have been in there and it was good to be back. There was about 4 inches of medium density snow from last nights little storm and it improved the riding immensely. Stayed on fairly low angle slopes all day. Not a whole lot of evidence of avalanche activity in the Cardiac area except for how well everything is filled in. In my opinion we are coming out of the woods in the deep snowpack areas in the core of the Central Wasatch and might be able to put the PWL to rest in the terrain covered. There was some wind damage on some of Cardiac Ridge and LSB but I don’t think windslabs are that reactive anymore. Stayed fairly cold and cloudy for the second half of the day so I would think the S facing still might be good in the AM but not positive seeing as I wasn’t on S facing slopes. Didn’t mess around digging holes today. We were too busy skiing and there comes a time when snow pits aren’t very informative.
Butler fork1/7/2022 Traveled up Butler Fork today with very low expectations. The temperatures were unseasonably warm and the snow got saturated the last few days. Basically from 7000ft up to 8300ft the snow was damp and saturated. Once we got above that on a sun and wind protected slope the surface was supportable with a little dry creamy snow topping it off. Dug a snow pit at 9300ft N-NE facing where I looked at the snow a few weeks back. A few weeks back the facets at the bottom of the pack were about as loose as it gets. Today the facets were sintered and compact and you could pull them out in chunks instead of them falling out like sand. There has also been some extreme settlement in the last few days, which you can see in the photo of the aspen tree. This is a good sign that the PWL is healing in this location, do to the combination of lots of new snow in the last few weeks and the warm rain/snow event in the last couple days. Not ready to go full green light yet but definitely seeing some improvement in the structure of the snowpack. The skiing right now could be better but in the long run the warm temperatures and dense snow are helping immensely.
January 06th, 20221/6/2022 Travel today was up Willow Heights, with a couple runs in the S facing Hourglass and a couple more runs on the sub ridge between the Monitors N facing. There was about a foot of new high density snow from yesterday and last night. The new snow had settled out quite a bit and the density inversion was no longer present, leading to creamy boot deep snow on all aspects. Some of the upper ridge lines were scoured down to a rime crust but only in the most exposed terrain. The only avalanche activity noted was a new snow slide on the skiers right side of S Monitor and a natural cornice drop into W Monitor that did not propagate into a avalanche. I didn’t have the greatest visibility but I did not see any evidence of a widespread large avalanche cycle out of this last storm. Got a decent look at Days Fork, Meadow Chutes and Cardiff Fork. It seems to me that it’s going to be hard to trigger a large avalanche down to the PWL at this point in time in the terrain with the most snow, the core of the central Wasatch, but the outlying areas with a thinner snowpack will still be suspect. The wind was still blowing at the time of our exit so windslabs may be a factor tomorrow.
Bowman Fork1/5/2022 Took a quick trip up Bowman in Millcreek Canyon today. The rain snow line was around 6200ft but the snow above that was damp and heavy, leading to a inverted upper snowpack. The wind was also cranking up high in less protected terrain building windslabs on the N end of the compass. There was also a rain crust that formed up to 8000ft then got buried by 4 to 5 inches of dense heavy snow, in the terrain covered. This all adds up to light density snow underlying a thin rain crust with dense heavy snow on top at an elevation between 6500ft to 8500ft. A heavy slab sitting on a thin crust with light density underlying it is a recipe for avalanches and an inverted snow pack. I would suspect that up high the snow pack is coming unglued with higher snow amounts and way more wind than my location today
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January 2024
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