Observation: Grizzly Gulch

The Prival Land Navigation course observed terrain in the the upper Little Cottonwood Canyons on November 3rd, 2018. After a recent snowfall of about 10cm covering all slopes, we found southerly slopes to be well saturated and rapidly melting upon the daytime temperatures in the mid 30's. The Northerly aspects held between 30-45cm of total snow pack with the bottom 10-20cm consisting of very dry and faceted snow. There was a stout crust (rain crust?) above the facets about 10cm thick with the new 10cm of new snow atop the crust. We only dug quick hand pits while on the move an mainly noted that the northerly aspects will present an avalanche propblem when loaded with new snow fall. Many south eastern facing slopes had little to no snow by end of day as south western facing slopes still held the previous days new snow fall.