Splitboard.com Forums

nice Mar, way better turns than I got.

I went up to guardsmens and rode 10420 since the LCC road was closed for avy control
not a lot of snow in BCC at all. Got about 200 feet of okay snow. but there was only 12" in protected spots and way less than that on E and S faces. Fun to skin, not so fun to ride. Solitude and Brighton were hard at work grooming their grass and making a lot of ice snow.

Here is a pano I shot Nov. 9th showing the snow coverage in upper BCC and LCC


click on image to go to flickr and view larger size

Nice, Wasatch Surf. It looks like decent coverage, at least from afar... Did you get any shots of W or S aspects? I imagine they look a bit different.

I did I'll try to post them up. S face had about 2-6" of snow.

11-12-11 apx. 1pm-3:30pm Snowbird...Big Emma, Bassackwards, Election

Things are getting interesting out there...New dense snow mostly graupel seem to be making things very touchy with our current snowpack, we were getting collapsing every 20 feet or so and shooting cracks on many slopes not steep enough to slide

lots of collapsing heading up towards gad 2 chair at the bird...so I walked towards the edge here to see if I could get anything to release and sure enough...location right shoulder off Election...NE-E aspects apx 100+ft wide running about 200ft, slope angle apx 32


triggered from where they are standing below


new dense snow sitting on a crust with facets underneath...new snow looks to be enough to collapse the crust layer and running on facets underneath and some spots to the ground


slide 2; a little further up Election...again walking along the shoulder to see if we can get things to pop....this one was triggered from where the picture was taken about 40ft away, small pocket but a little deeper








I would be very cautious venturing out into bigger terrain...slopes pictured were very manageable and predicted

thanks for the report Mar, it would be a bummer to get pushed down into all those rocks

Yeah Thanks for posting Mar, I had no intention of shredding today, looked at your post this morning and said to myself I got to get out there and poke around. I noticed that layer last week shredding N facing maybe very slight NE facing aspects 10k+. Lots of collapses but with only a foot or so of very light density snow on top I wasn't worried about it too much. Was interested to see how it would react with a little weight, didn't think this storm would have enough to push it over the edge but having got out today I can see why, super dense, foot plus(14% range), high winds, etc., with this storm....perfect.
Pit from 11/6

I got out today hoping to check out N facing but couldn't find safe access to one but to also to look at E. facing, W. facing etc. This was the perfect storm, super dense, just what we needed to improve riding conditions. I was interested to see what the E. facing was doing since last weeked I stayed away from them (e.g snow was just too light to support shredding, didn't want to risk hitting something). Anyways blah, blah, blah. Winds were loading E. facing aspects, my pit was on the Lee ward side right off the ridge so there was probably some wind effect/loading to consider, 10k+. Some collapsing, on the ridge but couldn't get anything to pop, not that I put myself out there too far. Interesting to me, I could not for the life of me find a crust on this aspect. Had to pull out the card. Instead I found a very cohesive slab, well bonded new to old sitting on what I guess is old small grained faceted snow from Oct or possible from last weekend.

Old layers are easy to see, but no crust found. Was only getting Q2 shears, no propogation on an ECT.


Anyways thank Mar123, it's cool this is the place to dork out and get up to date info on conditions. Haven't even checked the UAC website yet (I will start) but cool that you can come on here and find guys getting out poking around, doing it right....all no good snowboarders too. Punk rock!

First death of the season occurred today. Vibes to everyone involved in accidents today. It is sketchy out there for sure.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=18073250&title=avalanche-near-snowbird-kills-1

man, crazy day today...bummer to hear about a fatality...prayers go out to those involved

Utah, where were you when you dug your pit? Interesting to see no crust

Ventured up to twin lakes pass today, kept it mellow...hit the north facing slopes through the trees, winds were ripping out of the north/NW....second lap we headed up to the bottom of patsy and dug a couple pits at the bottom of the face ...pretty much same scenario over there with the crust/ facet layer... got a couple collapses on the slope as well...figured that was far enough....winds were loading and scouring the face forming some pockets of thick slabs

lcc sunset

That's an incredible photo Mar Might have to steal that tomorrow for my work computer's background haha

Jamie Pierre....

http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-avalanche-death-avalanche-near-snowbird-kills-one-man-20111113,0,4386006.story

http://utahavalanchecenter.org/accident_gad_valley_11132011

Be safe out there fellas.

Up into Albion Basin again...

Cool temps, obscured skies, with graupel flurries throughout the day. Snow was very sensitive, although there seemed to lack a real cohesive slab... things seemed more 'pockety' in nature, so we were able to travel safely into higher terrain. I won't beat any more dead horses... plenty of reports out there that probably look just like this one.

Here's a few pictures...

Avalanche we did see... soft slab, on a steep convex rollover, nearly ran down to the skin track.



Lots of riming going on...





And this...





Alta looked like it was open

likely from the wind loading the new snow