Join us September 11th. Black Diamond, Uinta Brewing Company, and the Utah Avalanche Center are teaming up for the 21st year to present the Black Diamond Fall Fundraising Party in Salt Lake City complete with food from Rico, beer & wine, the live tunes of Herban Empire, lots of great people and a cause that can't be beat. As usual, you can hook up with great gear at the legendary silent auction and a prize drawing. Along with being great fun, this party helps pay the bills - every penny you spend goes towards paying for the avalanche forecasts and education you need to Stay on Top.

The event is held outdoors and happens regardless of heat, rain, snow, inversion, sleet, hail, lightning, wind, tornado, flood, crickets, or special legislature session.

Kids are cool, dogs are not. Sorry. Kids under 12 are free, although we are asking for a $10 donation if they plan to eat.

Doors open at 6, drawing at 8:30, silent auction closes at 9:45, and the party shuts down at 10.

For more information call 801-365-5522 or go to www.UtahAvalancheCenter.org

Tickets are $40 in advance until 9 pm Wednesday, Sept 10, and $45 after that. You can get tickets online, at the Black Diamond Store, and at the Salt Lake and Sandy REI stores. When you buy an online ticket, your name goes on the will call list and you won't need to show a paper ticket.

Thursday, September 11, 2014 - 6:00pm to 10:00pm

$40.00

Black Diamond Store
2092 E 3900 S
Salt Lake City, UT 84124
http://blackdiamondequipment.com/en/utah/retail-store.html#visit

Click HERE to buy tickets.

We've already had snow in the mountains--in August!. Although it has already melted, the nip of fall is in the air and it's time to start planning for the avalanche season. It's time to put fresh batteries in your beacon, remove the old corroded batteries if you forgot to remove them last spring, or buy a new unit if you still stubbornly hang on to your ancient, single-antenna model, which has probably drifted out of its proper frequency, which decreases its range.

It's also time to go through your first aid kit after emptying it of various contents over the summer.

Here are my favorite links for mountain weather:

The good-old National Weather Service forecast is, hands-down, the best forecast you can find. For instance, HERE is one for Alta and you can go to the map and click on any region of Utah to create a customized forecast for that 1-mile square area. While you're on the page, you can click on the satellite loop, the radar loop or--my favorite-- the graphic display of hourly weather for that area.

A couple other more geeky links I like include:

The University of Utah Department of Meteorology products such as the Time-Height plots. (Time is on the horizontal axis and runs from right to left and the height of the atmosphere is on the vertical axis.) Yep, it's pretty geeky, but it is a very powerful weather display.

For maps, I like the Penn State display of various maps.

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you shop from Backcountry.com or REI:  Click this link for Backcountry.com or this link to REI, shop, and they will donate a percent of your purchase price to the UAC.  Both offer free shipping (with some conditions) so this costs you nothing!

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you buy or sell on ebay - set the Utah Avalanche Center as a favorite non-profit in your ebay account here and click on ebay gives when you buy or sell.  You can choose to have your seller fees donated to the UAC, which doesn't cost you a penny.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done.  This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always exist.