Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Cracking
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The new snow was on the move. In some places it was sluffing, and others cracking and fracturing. The crown/crack depths were about 12", so it was just the new snow, it didn't step down.</p>
The first attached picture shows a crack caused by walking by on the skin track. The new snow separated completely from a melt freeze bed surface with a clean shear. The slope was southeast facing in Upper Days Fork. The second picture shows an avalanche on a steep east facing rollover near the bottom of Main Days. There were ski tracks nearby but this avalanche was remotely triggered. This and others like it had 12" crowns...all new snow failing to bond to the underlying surface.
Snowpack
Compared to the snow we've been skiing this year, today's snow felt dense and a little slow to ski. It wasn't upside down or punchy, it just seemed slow. We were skiing between 9-10k elevation, it was cold snow on the northerly aspects, the 12 inches of uncut powder still billowed up to your thighs, but as a totally jaded Wasatch skier, it just wasn't as good as what we've been skiing most of this winter. The decent back to Alta on an Emma Ridge was a mix of dense powder and sun crust.