This thread is indeed useful to this East Coaster, especially since I am just back from a week in the Wasatch. We did a couple of low-angle tours in Willow Creek and Mill D North and stayed inbounds to get on steeper terrain. Wednesday's snowfall made for great conditions on Thursday.

Observation Feb 28 (Sunday). Went up to Silver Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon yesturday. Skied 3 laps in North Davenport without incident. Total snowpack depth on the north facing is over 6 feet deep, so deep slabs are starting to become a thing of the past. There were 2 avalanches observerd during the day. One was just off the Silver Fork Pass and the other was in North Davenport. Both were small, 12 inch deep, a couple of feet wide, soft slabs running on depth hoar and very pockety in nature.
The 1st picture is of the avalanche just off the East Bowl Pass.

The 2nd picture is of the small avalanche in North Davenport.

Lambs today. Tried to poke around in a new area, but all I found was plenty of private property. Everything except for due north in the trees was pure slop. Close to 45 degrees at the TH at 6600' at 12pm. Lots of wet snow activity all over the place.

Observation March 2 (Tuesday). Went up to Willow Fork yesturday. All we saw was a couple of point release avalanches on West Monitor. Went up to Mill D North today with the idea of skiing the Desolation Ridgeline. While skinning up to the area I dug several hand pits. Each one revealed depth hoar about 13 inches down. Because of the location of the hand pits (at the base of the hill) I was not sure if the depth hoar layer was present in the release zones but I was not going to take any chances. Settled for skiing Powder Park #1 and Little Water Peak insted. While skinning up to Little Water Peak some surface hoar was observed in the release zones of the main avalanche paths just east of the peak. If we get any new snow over the next few days this area is likely to become the scene of yet another avalanche or two.
The 1st picture is of the point release avalanches we saw in West Monitor. These avalanches occured sometime before noon.

Observation March 3rd. Went up to Circle Awl Peak today for a quick tour. The south face was very bushy and sloppy. While using the Mill A Basin/Circle Awl Peak ridgeline to access our ski run we were forced onto a Northwest facing slope for a moment or two. The snow was shallow and very very punchy. Most of the parties this year that have triggered avalanches say that they encountered simular conditions right before the avalache started. The only activity we saw were some point release avalanches on the steep east face of Mount Raymond.
The 1st picture is of the point release avlanches on Mount Raymond's east face.

March 3: North facing upper elevations are really good, despite wind pockets, etc.. Did Silver east and west to hideaway. Also, Bonkers was good the other day. and, although pits are still necessary in places, we've skied some slope angles in the low 40's. Wonder how many folks will get caught once this new snow covers the current crust.

heavy crusty snow mid to low elevations.

The Chief wrote:

sisyphus wrote:I've been out of town just in time for the latest storm (of course), but I wanted to cut and paste these stats from the UAC:

This brings our record-shattering season total SO FAR this season to:

261 unintentional, human triggered avalanches in the backcountry

59 caught

23 partial burials

5 total burials

11 injured

3 killed

Wow.

A very SAD RECORD indeed.

It's gonna get worse as more YAHOO's go out into obvious and posted Dangerous AVY Conditions thinking that they are all BULLET PROOF because they own the latest and best equipment!

Seriously and sadly appears that many of these folks are not be utilizing the one most important piece of gear in their inventory...

THEIR BRAINS!

this year seasoned folks have been caught as well. Perhaps people are bringing too much: hubris er confidence er a powderlust perhaps akin to that found in everest basecamp: A want to "get mine." Some perhaps are interesting accidents, like the guy on St. Helens. hmmmmm...
I hear the powder calling now...

West Couloir on Kessler held together well, feeling cohesive on all its aspects. test column and a ski turn up high didn't propagate more then lack-luster sluffing for a few feet. The snow seems a bit thick down low. but up high it is some of the best this year. Attempting ski cuts was sufficient, and we had a powder free-for-all. It has slid and been skied within the last two days, and the new snow has bonded well. This is great info considering how many slopes have similar characteristics.
Alternatively, we observed naturals on short/small wind-loaded northern aspects within the Argenta slide path, and believe these would only propagate into manageable soft sluffing were they on larger slopes.

there is a crust down under, which is where our column "kinda" broke Q3 ish, a bit of a dirty break. More importantly it made for pieces of bombedout krud on some southerly slopes.

Skied Circle-Awl peak today on northeast facing terrain. At least 14" of snow. It was a bit sluffy on top of the crusty old layer, but it never ran more than a few feet. The snow was wetter down lower. Great powder day.

Observation March 5th Skied Beartrap and Mill D North in over the head powder today. At the top of Short Swing there were a few avalanches in the steep north/northwest bowl. They both were caused by windloading of the new storm snow. Recently burried facets may have been a factor. If so I would expect the same conditions on any steep northerly aspect, especially in the Millcreek Canyon/Lambs Canyon area. The larger of the two avalanches had blocks of snow over 2 feet high, ran quite a good distance and was in what I would call the "un-surviable" catagory. By the end of the day the southerly aspects warmed up enough that sluffing of the new snow occured in steep rocky areas.
The 1st picture is of the largest avalanche in Short Swing

The 2nd picture is looking down the left edge of the avalanche path. Further over to the right the avalanche debries continued out of sight.

The 3rd picture is of the smaller avalanche in Short Swing

Days Fork today. Skied West Bowl, Two Dogs slide path, basically NE early and then N later up to about 35-36 degrees. I saw this small sluffalanche in Two Dogs on the way up. Looks like it was pretty manageable and the guy skied out.


Took a look at Main Days, and I was able to set off this sluffalanche on the skin up in the shot I wanted. I headed somewhere else.


That was the story the whole day -- avoiding the slopes that had been cooked. I saw a bunch of these small sluff avalanches all day, and they were very manageable with good choices of aspect and timing. Saw a lot of guys hitting Cardiac today, and lots of aspects were taking tracks today. Today and yesterday were the first two days I've felt good about the snowpack in a loooonng time. The last two days are probably my best two powder days all year.

The wind and the clouds today really helped things out with the new snow, and kept things fresh a lot later than I would have suspected. A big surprise for me today was that west-facing aspects got annihilated by the wind and were really loaded up and nasty. My original plan for the day was Holy Toledo until I saw the west facing stuff in Days.

Sweet shots gentlemen.

Observation March 6 Went up Willow Fork yesturday. From the top of the fork we got a good view of a large 2-3 foot deep windslab in West Monitor. Strong windloading was occuring at the time in both South/West Monitor. With lots of new snow to transport I would expect the avalanche danger in these areas to increase. Skied Wills Hill and no instability was encountered.
The 1st picture is of the large windslab in West Monitor.

Toledo and Flagstaff March 6th. S and SE skied great. About 15" of snow with occasional deeper pockets. The skis would poke through to the underlying crust every now and then. No instabilities. The snow below 9K was getting heavy/cooked around 1pm. Above that it was pure gold.

marauders wrote:

Wow D E E P. looks fun, and you always capture it well.

We did God's Lawnmower and the adjacent eastern ridge 3x's today. By the end, the lower snow was heavy. Spring cycle soon? ... Not Yet I Hope.