zeekzq14 and I took off from Tibble Fork yesterday morning headed for Mineral Basin. It was -8 F. when we left the parking lot, definitely not warmer on the ride in either. I was at Alta skiing the day before and the snow was great 12-14'' and super light. My was I surprised when we didn't see any new snow on the ride in. Literally, NO new snow. It looks like 2 weeks with nothing but freeze thaw cycles going on up there. Total crap. We did manage to find about 10 acres right outside Snowbird that was good though, wind blown or maybe wind protected. Once we got over into Mary Ellens I triggered this wind slab off coming down into the drainage.
I was coming down on the right side and stopped near that little tree when I heard the whump. This slid right below me super slow, it was about 12" of wind slab on top of that horrible hard layer that is ubiquitous in that area right now.
Later that day we ran into some guys going up behind Alta (not sure what that valley is called) and they told us about the aforementioned sled incident. All we've heard of since is that there was a wrecked sled in the area and no rider found or heard of. Hopefully we get a good ending soon and find out the guy is alright.
