Today we didn't have to travel too far in the graupel-filled inverted fresh snow to find evidence of extensive overnight natural avalanches.  Shortly after entering the Wellsville Mountain Wilderness we encountered debris from natural slab avalanches on treed north facing slopes at fairly low elevations.

As we walked up canyon we traversed under a few similar low-slope slides.  A bit less than a foot deep and broader than they were long, they could have threatened you if you were trapped in the gully at the bottom of the steep slope.

A little farther up canyon we unexpectedly came across a very large area of avalanche debris in the trees in the canyon bottom.  A long-running avalanche from the opposite side of the canyon had blasted through the stand of firs leaving stiff piles of deposition spread across several square acres of forest floor.

So, we investigated the avalanche...

The avalanche occurred on a generally east facing slope at around 6800 feet in elevation.  I measured a 38-41 degree slope angle in the area of the broad crown.

The avalanche wrapped around terrain features.  The crown was a couple hundred feet wide and varied in thickness, mostly around a foot deep.

Typical of slab avalanches, this one released right under cliff bands, where narrow chutes entered a broader bowl.

Brett Kobernik of the Utah Avalanche Center examines the crown.   The weak layer consisted of lighter density stellar snow flakes with perhaps a few recently formed surface hoar crystals thrown into the mix.

The slab had two distinct wind deposited layers, the upper one at least from the afternoon and overnight of 1-31 into 2-1-08.