Observation: Park City Ridgeline

Toured through the trees up to the Canyons periphery near Park City. Good surface snow with 20cm of new, light powder. Easy trailbreaking, but a bit slick underneath. No signs of cracking or collapsing

Dug a pit on a 39 degree, north facing, wind loaded ridgeline. 95cm to the ground. Pretty good snow structure with a crust 20cm down which provided a crumbly failure plane at ECT 11 and a compression test of 13, but there wasn't enough weight to get it to crack or slide on it's own.

There's still a solid 20cm base of basal facets which are very weak and angular, but at least on this slope, they are capped with a stout crust and strong cohesive slab of strong snow which would make it difficult to trigger a slide all the way down to that depth. Conceivably, a person could get the top 20cm of surface powder to sluff and build up enough weight to step down into this base layer, but it seems like fairly remote odds.

The temps were chilly, which when combined with the sun from two days ago, should create a cap on the south facing activity.

On lower angle slopes, I think the danger is low. On mid to steeper slopes, I think the danger is still moderate and if you looked hard enough in the upper elevation, north facing, wind loaded, unsupported slopes, the weight of a skier could still maybe trigger a serious avalanche.

Snowpit

9,490'

95cm total depth

38 degree slope

North/NE