Utah Avalanche Center

Observed a couple natural soft wind slabs, 1' deep x 50' on drifted east facing slopes.

Widely varying snow depths in this area. Snow was 2 feet deep just 20 feet to the south. Much deeper snowpack on south end of Double Hill. Generally stable conditions due to a lack of significant loading. Our only areas of concern were parts of slopes at ridgelines with the added wind load that would create just enough load to cause us some concern. However, we were not worried about being at the toe of big slopes.

Deep snowpack and much more uniform in crystal size, hardness, and visual appearance than many others this season. Decent looking snowpack. Many shallower snowpacks do not look as good.

ECT would not break on facets at 20-30 cm and we did two in this location. Surprised how willingly the PST fractured to the end after a 35 cm cut. I think this tells us these facets are simply waiting for a load. How much? Seems like it needs to be pretty heavy but not sure.

Many ice crusts seem to add a lot of strength to this snowpack. Donig a modified Rutchblock, the old snow layer at 65cm would break with several jumps. This layer isn't facted. The faceted layers would not break under the weight of a skier.