Observer Name
Wade Meade
Observation Date
Friday, March 27, 2020
Avalanche Date
Friday, March 27, 2020
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Butler Fork » Butler Basin
Location Name or Route
Butler Basin
Elevation
9,900'
Aspect
Northeast
Trigger
Skier
Depth
8"
Width
70'
Comments
The starting zone was on a 38 degree slope next to/overlapping with a smaller slide from one or two days ago, based on how much new snow was on top of the old bed surface. There were signs of minor wind loading. My partner skied a ~35 degree slope off of the ridge south of Gobbler's Knob with no results. I skied a slightly steeper line over a convexity 30 or 40 feet to skier's right of his tracks and cut left when I saw cracking. A soft slab 6-10" deep pulled out to skier's right of where I dropped in, propagating out farther left than my partner's tracks; maybe 70 feet wide in all. It ran to the flats of Butler Basin below. The bed surface was the crust that was almost everywhere in this area from before the storm. Unfortunately my camera on my phone has given up the ghost, and my partner's phone died, so no photos to share.
Coordinates