Observer Name
JC
Observation Date
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Avalanche Date
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine Chutes
Location Name or Route
White Pine/Little Pine Chutes
Elevation
8,500'
Aspect
South
Trigger
Natural
Avalanche Type
Wet Loose
Avalanche Problem
Wet Snow
Depth
5"
Width
400'
Comments
We started booting up Little Pine Chute relatively early, and saw evidence a few small wet slides that had released prior to us booting up. There was already a booter set but no tracks down-we had seen the party ahead of us near the top of the chute as we approached the apron, so figured they had dropped another aspect. Snow was variable and firm in the chute-a wet slide had run over the bootpack towards the top. We changed our objective from LP to WP chutes after crossing over the ridge to summit due to the snow looking much more consolidated on WP, and seeing no evidence of slides in WP.
Our plan was to transition and ski out fast as we knew warming was a hazard. We dropped in and triggered some sloughing, which caused me to get knocked off balance and loose a ski in the process. My party and I were unable to find it, which resulted in having to boot down-hence, much slower moving than we wanted. As we descended things were warming rapidly and we saw a huge wet loose slide release in the main exit chute of WP below us-running the entire width of the chute down to the apron (~400 ft wide or so). We kept moving as fast as possible down, scanning for overhead hazard. Another large wet loose slide released above us about 5 minutes after the one below us-again, running almost the entirety of the chute in width. It somehow deposited my previously lost ski right next to us. We were able to ski the last 1.5K out, through avy debris and thankfully did not see any other releases during our final descent.
Coordinates