Pine Canyon 1-4-06
(Natural avalanche occurred overnight 1-2/3-06)
A view of the crown right on the Box Elder Peak ridgeline from near the toe of the avalanche around 2500' vertical feet below. I'd estimate the crown to be 6-12' deep and at least 2500' wide, but I'll have to check a map.
Here's a view of the Wellsville Range as seen from the east taken last March. The arrow points to the south ridge of Box Elder Peak and the upper South Fork of Pine Canyon.
The debris formed a huge half-pipe with 30'+ vertical ice-walls on each side, in which I was trapped after entering.
The huge deposition filled the bottom of Pine Canyon from side to side, and I found upward travel almost impossible.
The deposition split into a few half-pipe in the lower runout. The walls are solid ice with trees and bushes embedded in them.
The vertical wall on the south side edge of the lower runout showing a neat cutout of partially buried trees. This is looking some distance up the sidewall.
It took me a couple hours to cover a few hundred vertical feet, as I made my way up the extensive chaotically jumbled debris.
Looking up at the fork in Pine Canyon. The avalanche barreled out of the south fork (left side). You can barely see the starting zone just left of center.
An example of the half-pipe wall and the difficult traveling situation. Once I was in the huge bobsled track-like gully formed by the slide I could not climb out of the icy walls
The avalanche toppled and tossed large trees about, literally turning acres of canyon-bottom forest into kindling.
Its difficult to describe or capture with images, but this is certainly one of the biggest avalanches I've ever seen.
The Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center issued an Avalanche Warning for all the mountains of northern Utah on the afternoon of January 2nd effective through 11:00 January 3rd... The warning stated, "Heavy snowfall and very high winds have caused a HIGH avalanche danger on numerous slopes in all the mountains of northern Utah."