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Avalanche: White Pine

Observer Name
L. Dunn
Observation Date
Monday, December 21, 2020
Avalanche Date
Monday, December 21, 2020
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
White Pine/LCC
Elevation
10,000'
Aspect
West
Slope Angle
Unknown
Trigger
Unknown
Depth
Unknown
Width
Unknown
Vertical
Unknown
Comments
We were across the way in White Pine today around 11am and noticed an avalanche had run on a west facing slope and it took out some ski tracks. We don't know when it ran or if it was human triggered or not, but I haven't seen a report of this avalanche and in general there haven't been many (any?) reports of avalanches on west facing slopes. This slope is one of the west facing slope between the Birthday Chutes and the Tri Chutes. We didn't see anyone skiing on the slope today, but it could have been skied earlier in the day, or the tracks might be from Sunday. Perhaps the slide was a natural as the sun heated the slope today, or there are a number of other possibilites, but there were no tracks visible near the top of the slide, so if it was human triggered it broke quite far above the skiers.
On our tour on the northeast facing terrain on the west side of the White Pine drainage, we heard settlement numerous times, and saw a few old avalanches.