Skier triggered avalanche which stepped down to facets near the ground on their fifth turn. They were caught and carried before skiing out the side. The avalanche continued down descending the remainder of a steep gully feature.
Advisory from February 10, 2003
Avalanche Conditions:
Our string of avalanche activity remains active with at least five more avalanches reported from yesterday. I have the details on our other line at 364-1591. For a quick run down: A huge avalanche was reported in upper Mineral Fork 2-4 feet deep and 300 feet wide, which covered up a climbing skin track. This was probably a natural avalanche yesterday morning, but we’re not sure. A skier triggered, was caught and was able to ski out of a slab avalanche on Coleville Peak, which is north of Park City on a very steep, northeast facing slope, 1.5 feet deep and 100 feet wide. A natural occurred off the east side of Scott’s Peak near Park city 1-2’ deep and 140 feet wide. A natural slide occurred in West Monitor. People had completely tracked up an adjacent, lower angled slope over the past couple days and when they returned yesterday morning, they noticed that the steeper slope next to it had slid 1-1.5 feet deep and 70 feet wide. Finally, an avalanche class in the backcountry near Canyons was able to intentionally trigger a couple small slabs, probably from recent wind loading.
Although many of the popular slopes have been tracked out this past weekend without incident, as you can see, there are still lots of very scary avalanche activity. Although there’s only localized places where you can trigger an avalanche, the consequences are quite severe as they are breaking deep and often wide, so these are not the kind of conditions to choose bold lines. Most, but not all of these, are breaking in steep, shallow, rocky areas and especially places, which have slid previously this season. Warming temperatures these next few days will make the problem worse. Also, and probably more important, the wind is blowing again today with lots of new snow to drift. As always, you should avoid any steep slope with recent wind drifts.