Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 2 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow/Old Snow Interface
- Trigger Type
- Snowboarder
- Vertical Fall
- 6 m
- Avalanche Type
- Wet Loose
- Slab Thickness
- 10 cm
- Trigger Detail
- Intentionally Triggered
- Start Zone Aspect
- West
- Avalanche Problem
- Wet Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2652 m
Poking around in White Pine on the ridgeline, had a West aspect small slide while I was skinning. It was about 10-15 minutes after the sun stopped shining on it, broke and ran slowly for about 20 feet, no hangfire or real danger right there so I decided to dig a pit right at the crown. The old snow, which is quite saturated, did not bond well to the newer, saturated, now sun-affected snow. It seems like more of a maritime-type snowpack avalanche issue, which I guess is fitting after that storm.
Snow profile from the pit: layers of 4-f dense snow, then about 30 cm's of fist-density snow followed by a 1-finger hard crust and the final 10-15 cm's of new snow which is still quite dense by Wasatch standards. Sorry about the picture it uploaded sideways. No noticeable failure on the ECT, Shovel Shear failed on the same layer as the slide with minimal effort. I would be surprised if anything lower down failed unless it really warmed up.