Nice work dudes!

December 17/18: What a weekend! It’s been a while since been this good. Used the good snow coverage as an opportunity to do a ridiculous amount of walking and riding.

Spent Saturday in uppermost MillCreek. Unlike many other areas it was socked-in, windy, cold, yet serene. Turns were amazing, but had to work for them. Hordes upon exit where a shock to the system probably do a BCC approach next time.
Sunday I managed to eek out a zone to myself between hordes to the west and to the east on the sunny-side of BCC. The snow was good every where I went and in both cases I walked and rode from nearly dawn to dusk.
26 miles and 10k’ ascent

No action shots, Cheers!

Really cool art there Snurfer, digging it!

Yeah Snurfer those are great! Are you using a filter/art brush of some sort?

cool thanks man!

on a side note…wow!

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What is absolutely CRAZY is that I almost included this in my initial WhitePine TR on Sunday…dont believe me if you want but… I actually had written what you see below in bold and deleted it because I thought it sounded too “micromanagey” …so what I had included was:

“For what its worth on the way up we both noticed how wind loaded and suspect the Birthday chutes were compared to most other slopes and would advise not riding those. If the slope looks fat proceed with caution.”

Some additional insights from our conversation about the Birthday chutes as Dan and myself were skinning up is we both discussed how it was very apparent how FAT the bday chutes looked compared to all other slopes and that it would not be a good decision to ride those. We could tell by the direction of the scouring on the shoulder and the fat deposits on the lee side that it was heavily loaded. …perhaps there has been even more windloading since our visit on Sunday that I could see creating more wind loaded pockets bumping the avy danger back up to pockets of considerable on high elevation steep slopes?

I think its a good idea to note that were not just up there and riding whatever, theres much observation and decision making going on, risk management, talking about what may happen if a pocket pops, wind loading, cutting slopes, islands of safety, run outs etc.

For instance when we were dropping in on the NE of lake peak we both saw that it had a suspect pillow at the entrance and discussed on how to manage it. Im sure Dan could provide some more insight since he was the one sticking his neck out on the cut. There was risk involved for sure.

some more discussions from the day… I really wanted to exit out Scottys bowl, Dan wasn’t feeling it but I think it was due to lack of energy from being sick. Again I felt good about what we rode that day, and felt Scottys would be safe to exit, again if you would’ve asked me to ride B-day chutes that day I would’ve said no way! But looking back maybe Scottys wouldnt have been the best idea just because the bottom is a huge terrain trap now with all the trees and brush getting bigger each year and much harder to manage if something were to go wrong…gullys and dirty run outs.

Anyways hope this sparks some thoughts and conversation when out in the BC. Theres always risk involved and hope were making educated decisions and not just luck and feelings.

Sounds like it was skier triggered and glad no one died, looking forward to the full report….by the way some of the knee jerk reactions on instagram make me very afraid for some of the folks venturing out into the BC…be safe.

peace
-d

Read the avy report on UAC, not sure what these guys were doing out there with their radios and phones, did they even have beacons and avy gear or know how to use them? Radios and cell phones are not how you locate a person buried in the snow. I mean seriously how would his partner even answer in the first place if he was buried in a avalanche…very strange.

“We saw no signs of wind loading into Birthday Chutes so we decided to drop in.”… This is really scary.

We were up there on Sunday and I’ve been into White Pine many times and I dont ever remember seeing the birthday chutes as loaded as they were on Sunday, it was pretty ridiculous and obvious as Dan and myself discussed. Pretty sure we were both like F’ that.

I feel bad for these guys and my intentions aren’t to insult them and really glad they are ok…but there are a lot of facts and observations that the UAC is not reporting on here, the fact that no one has yet mentioned how wind loaded that slope really was is frightening. I really wish I took a photo of the slope from that day.

Overall our snowpack is stable, I dont think we have a deep persistent weakness in our pack. In this case in the matter of the bday chutes i think it was a matter of the upper slope being so heavily wind loaded and connected with no support from the face below it only need a trigger to pop it off. I haven’t seen a slope this year as heavily loaded as the bday chutes were. It was really a monster ready to pop.

be safe!

-d

Saturday Night – Snow. Low around 14. Blustery. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 20 to 26 inches possible.

Not the Wasatch, but not that far either… Hope this verifies

Scooby2 wrote:

3pm Thursday update to:
Storm Details Storm Duration Total Storm Snow Total Storm Water
Begin – 2016-12-24 04:00 MST

End – 2016-12-26 04:00 MST 20-36″ 1.40-2.10″

. . . I remember this Wasatch, hold together storm! and keep bringing your friends

I’ll second that 🙂

in the hood…snow was blower

Put a couple in East before the masses showed up…

this all day

Michigan city air

Micro Wave exit

Just a great day, whatever you rode hope your cup is full!

-peace

Yep, Thanks Mar 123, Cups are full, woods are full too!

Thanks for the continued stoke Dave. Love the action shots!

Friday Decemeber 30 Willow TH

Snow on the sunnyside is officially beat. What hasn’t been hit is a mix of weather nasties.
Still some lap-able plush powder in the shadows, but getting to and from is getting rough.
Area traveled remains visually rad, under bluebird conditions.

A few more interpretatives (yes that tree is actually levitating.)