Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Mineral Fork has an overall shallow and weak snowpack structure, typical for Mineral. </p>
The nature of this storm involved very light flow which meant similar snow amounts at all elevations. We purposely chose Mineral as the mid portion of the canyon was doing much better with new snow amounts than the upper parts of the canyons. This is typical with a storm that has light flow. Mineral did not disappoint. We measured 16" in the higher terrain with 13" along the drainage bottom. The snow was prone to sluffing on the steeper slopes. There was natural sluffing but not excessive amounts. The new snow was not prone to cracking.
There is a little too much uncertainty with the persistent weakness to really ski like we want to. Need to choose slopes carefully and keep angles below 35 degrees. This will probably demand an overall pockety CONSIDERABLE danger again Friday.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The persistent slab presents the greatest threat to people right now. It is quite "pockety" in nature. Remote triggering is not likely at this time. The new snow only enhanced this problem slightly as it did not add very much water weight. However, we did come across one natural avalanche that took out at least the older wind slab from last weekend and perhaps into weak faceted snow. (<a href="https://utahavalanchecenter.org/avalanches/22624">Link to avalanche report</a>) This avalanche demonstrates the exact nature of the current avalanche problem: shallow snowpack areas that have recently been wind loaded.</p>
Oh my! Today was one of those days that we live for. Perfect Wasatch powder.