Avalanche: Skyline

There has been a lot of small avalanche activity in the lower elevations of Fairview Canyon. This slide is fairly representative of the general trend--slopes failing naturally at the top of open areas, generally at a rollover or convexity. Like the larger slides reported up north in the Wasatch and the Uintas, these slides are not cleaning out the weak layers. This avalanche left a 40 cm bed surface composed entirely of faceted grains. This avalanche was observed in the immediate vicinity of several popular snowboard/ski shuttle runs, most of which take out at or around this elevation. The slope in question generally experiences little or no wind loading, and no major sculpting or wind slabs were observed today. As I left the canyon tonight a medium-density snow was falling, which will likely preserve this weakness and possibly create a "repeater."

The top photo shows a corner of the ECT pit, with the fracture line just a couple of centimeters below the layer interface. The second photo is a close up of the two varieties of facets found in the pit: the larger crystals at left are the bottom layer while the smaller crystals on the right are the next layer up (the weak layer in this slide).