Wasatch Cache and Uinta National Forests

In partnership with: Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center and Utah State Parks.

Avalanche advisory

wednesdAY december 7, 2005

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am saturday December 10, 2005.

Good morning! This is Craig Gordon with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory for the western Uinta Mountains. Today is Wednesday, December 7, 2005 and it’s 7:00 a.m. Avalanche advisories for the western Uintas are available on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and all holidays.

This advisory covers the terrain from Daniels Summit, to Mirror Lake, to the North Slope of the western Uinta Mountains. That’s a lot of turf and I can’t be in all of these places at once. Your snow and avalanche observations are critical to this program and help to save other riders lives by getting accurate information out to the public. I’m interested in what you’re seeing especially if you see or trigger an avalanche. Please call 1-800-662-4140, or 801-231-2170, or email to uac@avalanche.org and fill us in with all the details.

Announcements:

I’ll be giving a free avalanche awareness talk tonight, Wednesday December 7th at 7:00 pm, at Timpanogas Regional Hospital in the cafeteria room and it’s open to the public.
 
The Moffit Peak weather station is back in operation. This site was made possible through generous donations
by BRORA, The Utah Snowmobile Association, and the National Weather Service. You can view data by clicking here.

For avalanche photos click here.

We’re looking for feedback on our new advisory page. Click here to check out the new “MOCK UP”. I’d like to hear what you think and you can email me at cgordonski@hotmail.com with comments and suggestions.

Current Conditions:

Under clearing skies, temperatures fell faster than a bad stock portfolio overnight and it’s brutally cold out there this morning. Check out some of these fuel gelling temperatures- at Lily Lake it’s -26 degrees, -16 degrees at Trial Lake, and a balmy -10 at Chalk Creek. Winds are light and out of the north blowing 5-10 mph along the ridges. About 4”-6” of new ultra light, Utah fluff fell in the past 24 hours.

Avalanche Conditions:

Aside from the extremely cold temperatures and tales of epic canyon driving experiences, the big headline news from yesterday is the report of a large snowmobile triggered avalanche. Details are still sketchy and we really appreciate the observation called in, but if you have anymore information, please call me at 801-231-2170. I have a few more questions about the slide. Right now though, it sounds like one rider triggered a large slide while they were ¾ of the way up the hill. Apparently six sleds were involved, burying one, but thankfully is everyone ok!

Yesterday’s cold, light chin tickling powder didn’t add a whole lot of new weight to the snowpack, but the gusty northerly winds were able to move quite a bit of snow around and form sensitive wind drifts. Ted Scroggin was out near Gold Hill and reported the wind was getting into lower elevation terrain and loading slopes in unusual places. Today, I’d expect very sensitive wind drifts, several feet deep, along the leeward side of ridges, especially at upper elevations. In addition, be aware of terrain features where new snow loading would have occurred. The usual suspects- gullies, chutes and sub-ridges come to mind and I wouldn’t be surprised to find fresh wind drifts a little further down slope than you might expect.

The most obvious avalanche activity will be within the new snow, though it could be a little stubborn and “locked up” due to the exceptionally cold temperatures. What’s more of a concern to me are the buried weak, sugary facets which formed during the November dry spell. This weak snow is now buried several feet deep in the snowpack. The possibility exists for avalanches, once triggered, to step down into these older deeply buried weak layers, particularly on northwest through east facing slopes. Triggering a deeper slide on one of these slopes would most certainly ruin your day.

Take the mystery out of traveling today and get as much information about the snowpack before center-punching your favorite bowl or chute. Dig quick hand pits and take a look at the layering of the snow and see if you’re riding on weak, sugary facets. Finally, if you want to avoid avalanches altogether, tone your slope angles down and ride in wind sheltered terrain.

Bottom Line:

In upper elevation terrain at and above tree line the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on northwest through east facing slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, especially those with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. A MODERATE danger means human triggered avalanche are possible. Remember- avalanches triggered today could step into deeper, buried weak layers in the snowpack, producing a large and dangerous slide.

In wind sheltered terrain and on slopes less steep than 35 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

Under mostly sunny skies, a dry, but very cold airmass is on tap for today. High temperatures at 8,000’ will be close 10 degrees and at 10,000’ near zero. Overnight lows will be around -10 degrees. Winds will be light, less than 10 mph and out of the north. A warming trend should make it a bit more tolerable over the next few days. Thursday’s high temperatures should be in the low 20’s and by Friday we’ll be seeing highs at 8,000’ near 30 degrees. No real big storms in sight.

General Information:

If you haven’t taken one of our free snowmobile specific avalanche awareness classes, schedule one now before things get too crazy. Give me a call at 801-231-2170 and I’d be happy to tailor a talk for your group. Also, once there’s enough snow, I’ll have the “Beacon Basin” training site up and running again this year at the Nobletts trailhead.

The information in this advisory is from the U.S. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

I’ll update this advisory by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday December 10, 2005.

Thanks for calling!