Quick report
- Aspect
- Northeast
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2957 m
- Slope Angle
- 27°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The numerous avalanches along the Park City Ridgeline were perhaps the most obvious indicator of instability. They included, West Monitor, West Willow Ridgeline, and Big Mac (not sure if the result of control work or not). No cracking or collapsing noted. </p>
My ECT result was a sudden planar collapse after 21 taps on the basal facets. This sounds similar to the results Todd Leeds reported and suggests that step down in possible. The dense snow from the past few days has really created a cohesive slab. I was a little surprised that I did not get any pit results between the old and new snow interface.
Here is a phone photo of the West Monitor avalanche. It ran a good distance into the runout area.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Most of the recent avalanche activity was within the newer snow and did not appear to step down to basal facets. </p> <p>See comments related to snow pit below.</p>
The strong winds and high density snow created a mostly supportable snow surface with ski penetration of only a few inches. New snow was grippy and skied well.