Today was one of my field days that all the forecasters do prior to a day of forecasting in the office.  I thought I'd take you along and give some insight to the behind the scenes thinking and trip planning.

When planning a trip into the backcountry, you should always choose terrain that's appropriate for the current weather and avalanche conditions.  What you don't want to do is set your sights on Box Elder or the east face of Lone Peak early in the week for a weekend trip and then follow through no matter what the conditions are like.  This is what we call "Summit Fever" and the urge to accomplish a certain goal can cloud your judgement.

I generally don't make a final decision on where to go until the morning on the day I'm going out.  I may have a few places in mind but let conditions dictate which will be best.  If I'm out forecasting or just out powder skiing also influences my terrain choices.  Either way, they both start out the same.

A quick peek at temps, winds and precip for the last 48 hours is the usual start for me.

This morning we had 4 to 8 inches of new low density snow in the upper elevations of the Cottonwoods which fell in the last 12 hours.  Temperatures had been on a downward trend and were in the teens to low 20s.  Winds were the biggest factor.  They had been gusty from the south and had slowed again overnight but were showing signs of increasing.  So, cool temps, some new low density snow and moderate to strong southerly winds was what we had.  From that information alone you can deduce a few things.  Low density snow can be transported easily.  Cold low density snow can also make for a nice weak layer with the addition of higher density snow on top of it from, say like, strong southerly winds.  Hmmmm, fresh wind slabs out there today?

The next thing is to check all of the recent avalanche activity to see what kind of avalanches are posing a threat. 

All the avalanches over the last couple of days involved recently wind transported snow with one person caught and carried.  They weren't monsters but no doubt slab avalanches that could cause people harm.  They were all on north through east aspects in the upper elevations.

So I have a good handle on the previous weather and avalanches now it's time to see how the weather will influence things today.  I prefer to look directly at the various weather models rather then other forecasters products.  For me, it's just good practice to form my own opinion.  My favorite resource is Jim Steenburgh's U of U site.  The "time height" charts are the best you will find for our area and are an excellent quick peek for moisture, "energy", and wind.  Today's showed some clouds and increasing southerly winds at the 700mb level which is around 10,000'.  Temps are found on different charts and showed them not getting all that warm which is the usual concern at this time of the season.

The next thing is a call into the forecaster on duty which was my pal Hardesty this morning.  We chat about recent weather and avalanches and what the weather is going to do today and into Monday.  The deep slab issue comes up and we speculate whether the winds and new snow will overload any slopes and produce a deep slab avalanche.  At least one has happened every storm and we thought there was a 50/50 chance something might come out somewhere.  We'll see.

So now, after gathering all this info (most of which is on our daily advisories already digested and put into simple terms) it's time to make a decision on where to go.  If I were going out to recreate I'd probably look for terrain in mid to upper elevations not quite high enough to be in the wind.  I'd want to go high enough to avoid warm temperatures as they're almost always a sure bet at the lower elevations this time of the season.  Also, I'd want to go high enough to find a decent amount of new snow but not too high where the wind is blasting me and forming fresh and, possibly, sensitive slabs.  Riding up there will be mediocre anyway.

However, when I'm forecasting I'm more likely to go into terrain that has the most instability.  Obviously I wouldn't get a real good idea of how sensitive fresh drifts are if I'm not in areas where they exist!  Careful route finding technique is crucial here.  Staying on safe terrain along ridges may be the only choice all day.  If there's a recent avalanche, we will go look at it to try and figure out layering and what pattern it might fit into.  I chose the Days Fork/Silver Fork ridgeline for today.  That area received as much snow as anywhere and the southerly winds should be loading the north sides of the ridges as much as anywhere.  Here's what I found:

What I found fit pretty well with what I anticipated.  The winds did not disappoint and were no doubt loading slopes.  There was a slight east component to them.  Light snow was falling most of the day which I had not anticipated.  We noticed numerous soft slabs that had either been human triggered or possibly natural as there was plenty of snow getting transported for naturals.  The new drifts were sensitive along the upper ridgelines.  There was enough hazard to avoid numerous obviously wind loaded slopes. As soon as you got down out of the wind the instability was much less.  The few inches of new snow that was below about 8000' became damp.

Next, using the internet at my house it's time to sort through all of our observations from backcountry users and post as many as I can before hitting the hay.  I'll run weather models to prepare for the morning forecast.  I'll put in calls to various Snow Safety workers from the resorts and UDOT to talk about conditions.  I'll chat with Hardesty again for the "forecast hand-off".  The alarm goes off at 3am and then it's into the office to produce the various products.