Big Cottonwood Canyon: Spruces Campground, up Mill D North to Short Swing Peak and reverse.

Elevations: 7,400′ – 9225′

Our summit as seen from my driveway.

Avy danger is really high right now so keepin it low angle and gladed is the way to go. Mark and I were interested in checkin out the unstable snowpack at the upper elevations.

Almost to the top and dumping! 3-4 inches fell just as we were climbing up.

On the peak, we spent a few minutes trying to trigger a slide by jumpin around on top and making ski cuts. We thought it would be easy but no results.

Check out my frozen sweat.

The profile.

After lookin at the facets more closely, it was obvious how sketchy our snowpack is. The bottom layer is actually becoming stronger while the facet sandwich farther up is your classic angular grain.

Our column ripped out with the first swing from the shoulder. Its sensitive but it seems like it would be the kind of layer that would fail after a coupla people drop.

Q1/Q2 shear. Hard slab style.

Comin off the top, our line looked pretty much like this down to the road.

And down to the trusty shoe box.

Home again.