December 15

Grizzly gulch, east bowl Silver Fork, west bowl Silver Fork, hideaway park, main Days, Spruces.

Elevations, slope angles and aspects

7500-10200', angles over 35°, all aspects

Snow conditions

2-4" recent snow over a wide variety of old surfaces.

South facing and off aspects retain a crust under the recent snow. It can be slick when stout and hard.

Several collapses experienced on wsw facing as the underlying crust was weakening with facets below.

Localized cracking around skis for the same reason.

Sluffing on the steep and shady was easily initiated with small ridgeline cornice drops and ski cuts.

sluff-slide

Several sluffs were trenching into older layering, picking up more snow and running just above the ground.

Those occurred on steep very sheltered mid elevation terrain.

Shallow overall snow depth in Days fork has resulted in a weak, faceted snow pack

Weather

Partly cloudy to overcast skies, mild temperatures in the sun, moderate in the shade, light wind.

Snow pit

main-days-snow-profile

Evaluation

Sluffing was the instability.

With no snow in the current weather guess, I'd expect a continued rotting of the snowpack.

Hopefully it remains supportable.

back

journal

© wowasatch.com