Utah Avalanche Center

Deep areas in humpy have good stability. All of our explosive work was only prying out freshly formed wind slabs and nothing stepped down. There is uncertainty as to what has slid in humpy (repeaters). The structure is poor with fist depth hoar at the ground. We did not find anything shallower than 180cm where we travelled, but we did not check every chute. Where the snowpack is shallow (repeaters) you could very likely pull out a large avalanche. Suspect...

Saturated surface snow is preventing further wind drifting

Wind transport out of the south loading lee side of exposed ridge lines in the alpine. Once off the ridge is was very pleasant. HS in Saddle Chutes varied from 200-260cm with a couple shallower spots noted at 160cm.

Natural wind slab avalanche failed on faceted snow above 2/14 rain-crust.

The basal facet layer is stronger than I expected, and I found it non-reactive in this pit. Quite a bit of nicely hardening February snow. Depth of slab making it hard to test and likely difficult for a person to trigger an avalanche.

Dug another quick hole down the ridge on the same aspect at 9700 and got ECTP 9 at 80cm (same layer as ECTP in this pit) Poor structure.

Unsure of grain type at 215. Maybe some facets. Maybe some rimed columns. Whatever they are, they spilled across the crystal card like facets.