Pine Canyon Naturals (Round 2)

2-4-06

A foreshortened view of a large crown in the upper south fork of Pine Canyon above Wellsville.  The blowing-in crown is ~400' wide and 4-6' deep.  The avalanche occurred between the 1st and 3rd of February 06.

You can see a side-view of the crown in the lower left.  The avalanche occurred on an east facing slope at about 8700'

The avalanche occurred on the same slope as a huge avalanche almost exactly a month ago.  Weak sugary snow (or depth hoar) develops on slopes with shallow overall snow cover.

I noticed evidence of numerous other recent smaller natural avalanches.  In fact, nearly every east and northeast facing path that I saw had recently run with new-snow wind-drift avalanches, many went well over 1500 vertical feet.

The following are pictures of Devastation caused by the huge natural avalanche on 1-3-06

My ski poles give some scale here.  This is on the south side of the canyon bottom where trees are embedded in a rock-filled ice wall.

These are actually 20' rocks on the north flank of the debris.

These topped trees are on the down-slope side of a small hill on the north side of the avalanche path.

This huge fir, several hundred feet up the bank on the south side of the slide-path was uprooted by the 1-3-06 avalanche.  It is difficult to describe the devastation still apparent up there.

A storm moves in over the Great Salt Lake, as viewed from the Wellsville crest.