Avalanche

Avalanche: Michigan City

SBSalt Lake
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Avalanche

Slab Width
15 m
Trigger Type
Skier
Avalanche Type
Soft Slab
Slab Thickness
51 cm
Start Zone Aspect
Southeast
Avalanche Problem
New Snow
Start Zone Elevation
2682 m

Spent the day touring in upper LCC and found one of the most reactive storm snowpacks I've experienced. In spots all over the compass/elevations shooting cracks where the norm. In some spots on Homeycomb peak every step would fracture the slope as if walking a thin sheet of ice. As we exited grizzly we saw one of the walls of the death gully ripped. Then to our surprise as we skied Michigan out we found the entire length of the road cut slid, connected, with only a couple breaks where the angle relaxed. Crown depths reached as deep as 2' but slides didn't run very long. After a period of direct sunlight we noted improved stability on zapped surfaces of the Emma's but our ride down involved a few hard stops at rollovers which triggered 1-2 deep storm slabs. Occasionally these uncovered rocks below. Navigating a final gully near the road we chose to stay on the sun kissed aspect and as we traversed along the edge we remotely triggered a deep storm slab on the opposite wall of the gully. All in all a very fun and exciting environment with instant feedback and interesting snow behavior.