Cardiff11/24/2021 Quick heads up, went back to Cardiff today, basically all the N facing terrain with snow on it has faceted out and will be a major player when it actually snows.
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Toledo11/21/2021 Got out for a late tour. Checked out Holy Toledo yesterday and it looked like it might be pretty good. Went up from the south side and popped in the top. Lots of crusts intermingled with facets in the starting zones. Good for today but they will be trouble when we get any real snow. West facing has more crusts than many of the north and east facinf slopes I have seen lately. Something to keep in the back of mind as the season finally ramps up. Need snow!
Broads Fork11/21/2021 Took the long walk into Broads Fork today. Starting at an elevation around 6000ft it required walking on dirt for the first 2500ft to 3000ft of vert. Basically didn’t put on skis until the bottom of Bonkers. Decided to head up the Diving Board first which is right below one of the SLC Twins. The main face had a supportable base with about 5 inches of graupel on top. Once we got to the top it was obvious that the shallower snow pack in this terrain was faceting at a faster pace than the deeper snowpack in upper LCC. The starting zone is rotting out quickly and on its way to becoming non-supportable. Same scenario in Bonkers. Beautiful bluebird day today, but we need some snow if we want the to keep the pack from rotting out completely. Pray for snow.
November 20th, 202111/20/2021 Returned to Cardiff because it’s the only game in town except for the closed resorts. Dug a snow pit at 10,200ft N facing and protected, the bottom 16 inches is still pretty solid with the snow at the ground still damp. The upper foot or so is a mixture of faceted snow and the new graupel that fell today. There is a layer of faceted snow that used to be a crust about a foot down that might be an active weak layer when more weight is added. The layer of graupel might slow down the faceting process on the surface but if we don’t get more snow to insulate it the faceting will continue.
November 17th, 202111/17/2021 Went into upper Cardiff to see if there were any soft turns to be had. There were a few but not a lot. With the big temperature drop the south facing stayed bulletproof all day, luckily there was a skiff of snow on top for some grip. The snow on the east facing on Cardiac Ridge also had a fairly stout sun crust with about an inch of new winded snow on top. Headed to the north facing bowl behind LSB called Kaleidoscope Bowl. It didn’t have the sun crust but it was a bit wind damaged. Next we moved on to LSB, NE facing. It was a little more consistent than the other aspects but still variable. The snow under the crust is starting to facet rapidly and will continue to unless we get more snow to insulate it. The high N facing is also starting to facet and break down.
Couple of days skiing11/16/2021 Went to Days Fork on Saturday, south facing coverage was disappearing quickly in the warm temperatures. The N facing is starting to break down and will continue to with colder temperatures and clear nights. Some of the starting zones that are shallow are deteriorating quickly, like Two Dogs, shallow snowpack on a rock slab equals weak snow.
Walked up Cardiff . Went to the bottom of the hallway and skied the tube. Pretty low snow conditions below 9000ft but it’s early. Need snow soon. Cardiff11/12/2021 Went to the top of Mount Superior today and skied Cardiac Bowl, and also Little Superior Buttress (LSB). The new snow from the last couple days was dense and supportable today with about ankle deep ski penetration. There was a bit of a rime crust on top from yesterday but it didn’t really affect the skiing. The upper slopes in Cardiff Fork are really filled in for this time of year. I was able to ski the bowl off the top and the snowpack is solid for now. Dug a pit at 10,800ft N facing in Cardiac Bowl, it was about 3 feet deep, damp at the bottom, right side up with no layering. No instabilities we’re noted today except for some wet activity on the S facing exit. Once again we are looking pretty good right now but if the snow sits around for an extended period of time it’s bound to start faceting on the surface and will work it’s way down through the pack. Hopefully we can keep getting a bit of snow for the next few weeks.
Cardiff11/10/2021 Went to Cardiac Ridge because it snowed and Alta’s a little hectic when it snows. There was 8 to 10 inches of new snow, mostly graupel. As soon as we got off the south facing and dropped into the north facing the collapses started. Got some small ones at first then some big loud booming ones up high on Cardiac Ridge. At first
I wasn’t sure where in the snow pack the collapses were coming from but after digging a quick pit the answer was revealed. The storm came in all graupel at first then the last 4 to 5 inches of snow came in denser and created a density inversion in the storm snow. The 5 inches of dense snow was acting as a soft slab. The wind might have slabbed it a bit as well and the graupel underneath was the weak layer. There’s no way in hell I’d walk up Cardiac Ridge getting large collapses unless I was positive it was in the new snow and shallow and totally manageable. I would suspect these instabilities to settle out but I’d be cautious of wind slabs tomorrow, it was blowing pretty good on our exit. LSB, Cardiff11/5/2021 Been down south for the last week and wanted to get a look at how the snow was holding up on the high N. Went up over Cardiff Pass to Little Superior Buttress NE facing. The snow on the high N, NE is deteriorating rapidly from the cold clear nights the past few days. I found a thin crust which formed last Friday from green housing and damp snow, it’s capped off with a few inches of snow from Monday which has already faceted and i was also finding a layer of faceted snow below the crust on the shady N. There’s plenty of terrain that is not holding this set up, E, S, W are either crusted or dirt but when it does snow people will be drawn toward the N facing with old existing snow. If we don’t receive new snow i would expect the whole snow pack to rot out eventually. The price of admission was high with dirt walking involved on the entry and exit.
La Sals- Gold Basin11/2/2021 I was planning on leaving Moab this morning but it snowed a few inches up high so I decided to give it another go. The snow line seemed to be hovering around 9500ft. The new snow was fairly light density but managed to hide the rocks quite well. I went up to Talking Mountain Cirque but the cloud line was hiding the upper peaks. I decided to ski a N facing, shady, sheltered run at 11,000ft. Unlike the wind exposed higher elevation terrain, the crust facet sandwich was not evidentb ut the whole snow pack had faceted out and was lose and rotten. I would suspect areas like this will be the first to avalanche once a load is placed on them. The sun popped out in the afternoon and the new snow got damp immediately on all aspects except high N. It’s even more work to get in there than it was a couple days ago due to melting out on the lower elevations.
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