2/28/212/28/2021 Travel today was up Willow Heights to the PC Ridgeline and over to South Monitor Bowl. The weather was mostly clear and cold with light winds on the ridgeline, the S and SE facing got damp and will be crusted in the morning.
The Friday Saturday storm deposited 12 to 16 inches into the bowl, right side up and well bonded to the old snow. No instabilities were noted today. I would expect wet activity to increase tomorrow and throughout the week.
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2/27/212/27/2021 Travel today was up Bowman Fork in Millcreek Canyon. The weather was cold today with mostly cloudy skies, moderate to heavy snowfall, and a few sucker holes of sun.
There was about 8 inches of light density snow at the trailhead at 5800ft increasing to around 15 inches at 9000ft. The snow was blower and non wind affected, but I stayed off the ridgeline. The only instabilities noted were sluffing of the new snow in steeper terrain. The new snow did not add much weight to the snowpack. It was most likely a different story up in the wind zone and in more exposed terrain. Things have filled in nicely after last week’s storm and a bunch of good skiing has finally opened up. d up 2/25/212/26/2021 Travel today was up Red Pine via White Pine trail head.
Clear skies, cold air temperatures just like we like! Haven’t been up to Redpine this year, but with Alta hitting a 100 inches it was time. There was a good avalanche cycle in the upper portions of Redpine and also a good slide down Scotty’s Bowl. A new 4 inches of light density snow improved the riding in select locations. There were large avalanches on all the E facing above the lake and all the way up to White Baldy, but white Baldy didn’t slide and is still rocky. Skied due N lake shot, SE off of no name Peak and NW aprons lower down. All skied well but the rime crust is noisy but not affecting skiing quality. Things seem to be slowly stabilizing, but not solid yet. Good to get a look at the alpine and stoked on the lack of people. 2/24/212/26/2021 Travel today was up Bowman Fork in Millcreek Canyon.
The weather was unsettled with light snow showers, low clouds, breaks of sun and cold temperatures. I decided it was a good day to stay in low elevation, sheltered, N facing terrain because of the high wind speeds at upper elevations for the last few days. The highest I got today was around 8000 ft. The snow was still settled powder on the N facing terrain with melt freeze crust of varying thickness on the E and W. There are still a lot of suspect slopes in the Millcreek drainage that have not avalanched, and have the PWL at the base of the pack and a hefty slab on top. With a thinner snowpack than the Cottonwood canyons, it seems to make sense that triggering a slide in this terrain would be easier than triggering a slide in a zone with a deeper pack. The low elevation exit was frozen solid and required a bit of speed control. 2/22/212/26/2021 Travel today was up Willow Heights to South Monitor Bowl on the PC Ridgeline.
Temperatures were fairly warm by midday, dampening the snow on E, SE, S and SW.These aspects will most likely have an unpleasant crust in the AM. Been keeping track of S Monitor all year and knew it had slid to the ground a few weeks back. I’ve skied the bowl a few times since it avalanched to check in on the bed surface, which was slick and hard but devoid of any PWL. Today seemed like the day to punch it. I stepped into the bowl and probed the snow, finding 3 feet of right side up, dense snow sitting on the hard bed surface. The new load of snow seemed well bonded to the old surface, with no suspect layering. The snow was dense and creamy with about boot deep ski penetration. The warm temperatures today did a lot to settle out the massive amount of snow we received last week. 2/21/212/26/2021 Travel today was to upper Cardiff Fork (aka cardiac) from BCC.
It was cold and mostly clear up high, with some passing clouds and increasing winds in the afternoon. It was good to get up there and see what avalanched and what didn’t. This is the list of avalanche activity; High Ivory, E facing from the top, High Ivory, SE facing, longest running slide in the drainage, well over 2000ft and made it to the valley bottom, Cardiac Ridge and Hansen’s, multiple slides at different times during the storm, all the N facing from the Keyhole to LSB, skiers right side LSB, Holy Toledo skiers right. Lots of pics below. Yeah I know big list, big slides. Skied the lower angle but thinking it’s about to come around soon with settlement. 2/20/212/26/2021 Travel today was up Willow Heights, PC Ridgeline, and Wills Hill.
The weather was mostly cloudy with light to moderate snowfall, strong ridge top winds from the W-NW, some clearing in the afternoon, and cooling temps as the day wore on. Took a look into the Monitors but the heavy wind loading and lack of visibility told us to move on. Both Monitors slid to the ground recently and now have a hard and slick bed surface, which mixed with a wind loaded slope was not in the cards today. Skied a few runs on the sub ridge between the two bowls then moved on to W-NW facing Wills Hill. The zipper rime crust could be felt on the W facing but did not effect the skiing. The new snow from this morning was mainly graupel with some stellars mixed in. The wind was still cranking up high at around 4pm but not down in the drainage. 2/18/212/26/2021 Travel today was up Cardiff Fork from BCC.
Weather was mostly sunny in the am with not much wind and warm. In the afternoon it started blowing, got colder and low lying clouds increased with light snowfall. Wanted to get a look at the avalanches that occurred in the last few days before the next storm tomorrow. Most of the E-NE facing terrain off Kessler avalanched at some point in time. Gods Lawnmower, The Catchers Mitt and East Kessler all slid. There was also a large slide below the High Pockets on the SE facing. These avalanches were all large and destructive, burying the summer road under multiple feet of snow and snapping trees. We hiked up one of the paths that avalanched on E Kessler. It had about a foot of light density snow on a hard bed surface. Seems like most of these avalanches cleaned out the PWL and left hard bed surfaces in their place. We also saw what the results of control work in the Argenta slide path produced. It ran big and almost made it to the creek and the main road. If you are enjoying the observations, please consider donating on VenmoMark-White-240 Archives
January 2024
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