Avalanche: Blacks Fork

Noticed lots of soft, long running slides producing debris piles up to two feet thick, running anywhere up to 1000'

Went into the West Fork of Blacks Fork today to recon a couple peaks and ski lines. Snow was generally dry and soft although in places the surface was strafed by the wind with a thin breakable crust. The area in which I traveled, generally South of Mt. Beulah, was somewhat protected by the strong SW winds. These winds scoured the west faces but interestingly did not result in the massive cornices seen further to the east and in the Wasatch. As the day progressed I began to see some roller balls but this was the only indication of instability I found all day beside the long-running sluffs which seemed harmless enough. I avoided anything overly steep and rocky on the outside chance that things could step down below the fairly hard new snow/old snow interface on which the long sluffs were running. Across the way in the Left Hand Fork Valley I observed a large slide which had pulled out on the North Face of the Cathedral where it rolled over below the summit at about 11,800'. It was far away and hard to estimate but it appeared that the crow was several feet think and propagated at least 3-400'