What an incredible season it has been. A few observations from around the area.
I took the photo below of Mineral Fork yesterday morning from the Wildcat Ridge between Big Cottonwood and Mill Creek Canyon. What struck me most as I looked into that area (and my eyes have better "resolution" than this blown up phone photo) was the lack of pucker trees and brush. Nearly everything is buried, including on the mid-canyon slopes.
Similarly, the main Porter slide path has only sparse tree coverage.
In lower snow periods, that path has gotten quite choked up with trees over the years, but that's not an issue currently. Similarly, a lot of lower-to-mid elevation treed and brushy areas have great coverage and many areas with difficult brushwhacking are pretty easy to move through.
Below is a non-scientific comparison of the snowpack this season to that in 2010/11 at 6600 ft in Porter Fork. I did some offline measurements and the photo I took yesterday might have be bit more roof snow in it than the one from 2010/11, but the latter was taken 11 days earlier.
From Mount Timpanogos north to Ben Lomond Peak, here is where the current snowpack water equivalent ranks at SNOTEL stations with long periods of record:
Timpanogos Divide: #1 out of 45 years
Snowbird: #1 out of 34 years
Brighton: #1 out of 37 years
Thaynes Canyon (PCMR): #2 out of 34 years
Mill D North: #1 out of 34 years
Parleys Summit #2 out of 45 years
Louis Meadow: #1 out of 24 years
Lookout Peak: #1 out of 35 years
Hardscrabble: #1 out of 30 years
Parish Creek #1 out of 24 years
Farmington: #3 out of 45 years
Farmington Lower: #1 out of 20 years
Ben Lomond Peak: #3 out of 45 years
Ben Lomond Trail: #1 out of 43 years
Simply incredible, and there's nothing to suggest the parade of storms is going to slow down anytime soon. The medium-range guidance continues to look active.
I have been and might still be a bit reluctant to rate this season ahead of 2010/11 for skiing, but if you want to argue otherwise, so be it. I'm a little partial to 2010/11 because although the snow accumulation started a bit later that year, there wasn't a persistent weak layer issue for as long as earlier this year. It is also possible that I'm biased by the fact that I had a more functional body then. In either event, we're splitting hairs.
I wasn't here for 2011, but have heard about it since I moved here in 2014. I would love to see a deeper dive in the overall pattern for these two years. This year feels like it's been a LOT of warmer storms and denser snow. Is that true for 2011?
ReplyDeletePer Alta web site:
Delete2022/23 season to March 16: 681" of snow, 54.76" water.
That yields a water content of 8.04%
2010/11 to March 16: 496.5"/48.24"
Water content: 9.71%
What's interesting is that the Snowbird Snotel was at 50.5" of SWE on March 16, 2011, more than mid Collins. Late March through April was crazy in 2011 though and by the beginning of May, the SWE had hit 73". I remember that upper Snowbird was still open for skiing on the 4th of July in 2011. Will be interesting to see how the melt progresses this year.
Delete10/11 seemed colder yet I don't recall that year having the low elevation snowpack that this year has had. I'm guessing that this year has had stronger overall dynamics, while 10/11 had better orographics for the central Wasatch. 10/11 was unbelievably good, but never forget the MLK weekend storm that rained to the summits then froze solid. That ice layer was terrifying and took until March to decompose.
ReplyDeleteI need reminders like this. Past years tend to look either much better or much worse as the details are forgotten.
DeleteGreat minds think alike!!
ReplyDeleteLooks like we did the exact same tour for St. Patricks 2023. I started at 9:30 am and had lunch around 1pm at Porter Pass within feet of your first photo. Did you summit 9661 and drop the Icebox? I summited 9661 and dropped the chute just east of treeline in your second photo. Drew does a nice terrain summary
https://utahavalanchecenter.org/avalanche/41026
Don’t tell anyone.
Seems like 2010/11 was colder. This year the creek bed just up and around the corner from your third photo, let’s say elevation 6625, is exposed running water with 4 foot banks where in 2011 it was snowed in. Think it was the warm Christmas this year—I got skin glop Christmas Day that caused me to abandon my tour due to 30 pounds of snow attached to each ski. I noticed this year the low elevation creeks froze in early December and then melted at Christmas, remaining exposed this season due to the plethora of warm high wetbulbzero atmospheric rivers. Parts of lower Bowman Fork are hazardous because of the 6 foot fall into running water and the 6 foot pack above your head pushing you into the creek. In 2011 this was all snowed in and you just had nice powder skiing on the trail.
One thing I’ll say, related to the warm Christmas, is the snowpack this year is not Go-Go. Because it is a repeater with a possibly week base, the north-east facing cliff band off Gobblers into Alexander is no-go for me, though some adventuresome presumably young people did hit it a week or so ago without incident. Musta been lotta fun
Dave Kelly does a nice job summarizing the all aspect and all elevation interleaving mix of weak layers and bed surfaces patiently awaiting an appropriate trigger to release an avalanche.
https://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog/76639
Does seem the high sun angle will stabilize most of the lower elevation through a natural meltwater/sintering/isothermal process in due course. Continuing warm storms starting as rain transitioning to snow will delay this.
Finally, low elevation south is bare ground. The area around rattlesnake gulch is bare this year. It would be nice to have photos like you do but my failing memory remembers snow there St. Patricks 2011. I could be wrong on that.
Clearly, we MUST!!!! KEEP!!! PRAYING!!! for MORE SNOW, LESS WIND and LOWER WETBULBZERO with VERY MANY ICE NUCLEATING PARTICLES
Can confirm. We got up there much earlier than you. Damn cold skin up to Porter Pass. Had to put on my micropuff and thick gloves. Sunshine on the ridge greatly appreciated.
DeleteCornices another complexity.
Oh, and this is important. We did NOT put that skin track in up to Porter Pass. Not my style. I regret not putting in a better one.
DeleteLOL. I put my own skin track in. If the existing skin track goes downhill, I eschew it.
DeleteFor some reason a constant angle of ascent with few kick turns seems to elude people.
No regrets. If those who come after us want a better skin track they can use mine.
You must have loved being damn cold.
I hear some young gun puts in a nice skinner up the Emmas if you can manage the road during storms😉
DeleteNot a comment on depth, but very unusual conditions up here in Park City the last couple days. All the rain/wet snow earlier in the week followed by very cold 0F temps for a couple nights created a tremendous crust in Round Valley. Mountain Trails basically encouraged people to take the opportunity to ride their fat bikes anywhere, not just on the trails, since the crust was so strong and snow so deep.
ReplyDeleteSounds like snow conditions for most of the XC skiing I did in upstate NY as a kid.
DeleteTo me the most impressive thing about the state of our snowpack right now is simply how much there is at low levels. Pretty much every valley east of the Wasatch Front has had snow cover all winter long and still has a ton of it. Even the Cache Valley, which is the same elevation as Utah Valley and only a few hundred feet higher than SL/Davis/Weber, appears to still have a nice fat snowpack. Are there long term snow depth observations at places like Logan/Morgan/Heber to compare to? Maybe I’m just ignorant but the sight of a still snow covered Heber Valley in mid March really grabbed my attention. That and the many feet of snow still present in Park City.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, why does the Wasatch Front tend to lose its snow faster than other valleys at similar elevations? I’d suspect it’s because it is more open and doesn’t develop cold pools nearly as strong (unlike the Cache), but Utah Valley is pretty isolated. Perhaps urban heat island is a contributor?
Yes, low-elevation snowpack has been really robust.
DeleteIt's probably clear that the Cache Valley holds it's snow better. I'm not sure it's as obvious for the Salt Lake vs. Utah valley comparison. It's possible it is, but I'm not aware of a study that shows this.
Snow is ephemeral in both valleys, meaning it waxes and wanes during the winter. It is also spatially variable. Some good satellite work could be done to quantify the coverage and duration of snow in the two valleys, which would be interesting (but also challenging).
I know we have Steenburgh Winter from Alta hitting 100” base until February 10th ish (not sure on that exact date). Gunna need to term a new phrase for spring time periods from Alta hitting 200” base until Memorial Day weekend
ReplyDelete