Loose Wet
- Alpine
- Treeline
- Below treeline
- Likelihood
- Unlikely
- Size
- 2
As the temperatures warm over the next couple of days, it wouldn't hurt to be thinking about some wet snow problems. I would avoid areas where the snowpack is shallow (less than 3 feet deep) and becomes fully saturated, wet, and unsupportable to the weight of a rider.
The most suspect terrain would be outside the Cottonwoods, such as PC ridgeline, Lambs, Mt Aire, Sessions, Mill Canyon Peak, and Snake Creek. As always, if the snowpack becomes unsupportable and you're seeing active rollerballs cascading down the hill, it's time to get out of there. One of our colleagues running the snow safety program at one of the ski areas along the Park City ridgeline closed off some of his solar low/mid-elevation terrain yesterday, noting that "the shallow snowpack did not take the heat well." It was time to pull the plug with collapsing the wet snowpack and minor wet loose activity—a good rule of thumb for those traveling in sunny terrain today.