Wasatch Cache and Uinta National Forests

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

Tri-City Performance, Polaris, the Utah Snowmobile Association, the National Weather Service, BRORA, and Backcountry Access.

  

 

 

avalanche advisory

saturday march 10, 2007

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time it’s issued, but will be updated Sunday March 11, 2007.

 

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 Saturday, March 10, 2007 and it’s about 7:00 am. Regularly scheduled avalanche advisories for the western Uinta’s are available on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and all holidays and are brought to you in partnership with Utah State Parks and Recreation.

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 801-231-2170, or email at cgordonski@hotmail.com and fill me in with all the details. Thanks to everyone for all the great avalanche info and pictures this week.

 

Current Conditions:

A mild westerly flow over the region brought an inch of new snow overnight to the upper elevations. Skies are mostly cloudy and temperatures are in the upper 20’s to low 30’s at the trailheads and along the ridges. Winds have been steadily blowing out of the west-northwest for the past 24 hours averaging 25 mph with gusts in the low 40’s. The riding and turning conditions remain quite good on sheltered shady mid and upper elevation slopes.

 

Avalanche Conditions:

Today we’ll be dealing with three distinctly different avalanche problems. First are the new wind drifts that formed in the past two days and you’ll find these mostly along the leeward side of upper elevation ridges. They’ll be easy to spot by their fat pillow-like shape and in some wind exposed locations, these new slabs could be several feet deep. While mostly manageable in size, take care one doesn’t knock you off your skis or machine.

The other manageable avalanche problem will be the danger of wet slides on steep sunny slopes as the day heats up. Remember- the sun is high in the sky and is beginning to bake many different aspects. Steep northerly facing terrain at mid and lower elevations are getting in on the act too, so as the day heats up you’ll want to stay off any steep sun-exposed slope and avoid terrain traps like gullies and steep road cuts.

Finally, the last avalanche problem isn’t so predictable and it’s hardly manageable. While deep, dangerous hard slabs are becoming more difficult to trigger, the consequences remain just as deadly. For the most part the snowpack has healed quite well though an occasional collapse or two has been reported this week, leading me to believe the avalanche dragon is still lurking out there. The most likely place to trigger a deep old hard slab would be in steep rocky terrain, where the slab overlays a shallow weak snowpack.   

 

Bottom Line:

In upper elevation terrain, at and above tree-line the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on all slopes steeper than about 35 degrees with recent deposits of wind drifted snow and human triggered avalanches are possible. Be aware that within this terrain there is a MODERATE danger of triggering a deep, dangerous old hard slab especially on steep, rocky upper elevation slopes with a shallow weak snowpack and large, dangerous human triggered avalanches are still possible.

The danger of wet avalanches will increase to MODERATE on steep sun exposed slopes with daytime heating.

 

Mountain Weather:

After a few morning snow showers, clouds should begin to dissipate and a clearing trend will develop. Highs today at 8,000’ will be near 40 degrees and at 10,000’ near freezing. Overnight lows under clear skies should drop into the mid teens. Winds will become northwesterly and blow in the 20-30 mph range along the ridges with an occasional gust in the 40’s at the most exposed mountain top locations. Sunny skies and warm temperatures are on tap through about mid week.

 

Announcements:

I completed a preliminary investigation on the avalanche accident that occurred on Saturday Feb.17th in Buck Basin and it can be found here. Also there have been a number of close calls and unintentionally human triggered avalanches across the state in the past few days and pictures with descriptions of the events can be found here.

 

The Windy Peak weather station is up and running. Click here for current conditions.

 

I’d like to thank Jim Shea, The Canyons and Colleen Graham from the Friends of the UAC for all their hard work in making the Know Before You Go fundraiser such a success!

 

The first annual western Uinta fundraising ride was an amazing success with nearly 150 people showing up for the ride alone!

I want to thank the Jim Shea Family Foundation, Rocky Mountain Sledders, the Wasatch Snowmobile Association and the Utah Snowmobile Association for all their tireless work in putting the event together. Thanks again to Team Thunderstruck and the Boondockers crew for helping out and schooling even the most experienced riders. Also, we couldn’t have pulled it off if it weren’t for Chad Booth who did an incredible job as both master of ceremonies and auctioneer. Finally, it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of everyone who attended… you folks are awesome!  

 

I want to thank the crew at Tri-City Performance in Springville along with Polaris and the Utah Snowmobile Association for partnering with the avalanche center and stepping up to the plate by providing a new sled for this season!  Click here, to see the new ride!

 

We installed Beacon Basin at the Noblett’s Trailhead and it’s good to go. I want to thank Doug, Bill, Jared, Brad and Wally who

unselfishly took time out of their powder day to help out the riding community… you guys rock!

 

Free avalanche awareness classes are available. Give me a call at 801-231-2170 or email cgordonski@hotmail.com and get one scheduled before the season gets too crazy!

 
If any terms confuse you, take a look at our new avalanche encyclopedia.

 

For avalanche photos click here.

 

General Information: 

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 7:00 am on Sunday March 11, 2007.

This advisory is also available by calling 1-800-648-7433 or

1-888-999-4019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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