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

Saturday, March 1, 2003

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 including but not limited to the terrain surrounding Chalk Creek, Smith-Moorehouse, the Mirror Lake Highway, and Woodland.

This advisory is made possible through a generous grant provided by Utah State Parks and will be available for the rest of the winter on weekends and holidays.

Today is Saturday, March 1, 2003, and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:

Skies are mostly cloudy and winds are generally out of the northwest at speeds of less than 10 mph along the ridges. It’s cold out there this morning and temperatures are near 10 degrees at most mountain top locations. New snow totals this past week are highly elevation dependant and above about 9,500’ we’ve received anywhere from 18”-24” of new snow throughout the range. The riding and turning conditions are about the best they have been all year.

Avalanche Conditions:

I’ve probably sounded like a broken record for quite some time this winter, predicting an Armageddon-like natural avalanche cycle once our fragile snowpack received a significant load on top of it. Well, last weekends vigorous storm system packed a pretty solid punch delivering several feet of snow and hurricane force winds. As a result much of the steep, upper elevation terrain surrounding the region peeled apart. The avalanches I looked at this past week had several common themes. They were all occurring on steep, rocky, wind-loaded slopes, above 10,000’ in elevation, and on all aspects. All of these avalanches were running on weak, faceted snow close to the ground. One of the more impressive slides occurred on the north face of Murdock Mountain and this avalanche was close to 5’ deep and about 500’ wide. This avalanche was triggered by a naturally occurring sluff that originated in steep terrain above the slope.

No new natural avalanche activity has been reported since Wednesday, which indicates the snowpack is starting to become a little bit better behaved. However, the basic fact remains that the deep instabilities within the snowpack are going to take some time to adjust to all this added new weight especially in terrain where the snowpack is shallow and weak. Our snowpack is quite complex in that some areas the snowpack is deep and strong and just a couple hundred feet away it’s shallow and weak. Remember that all of this snow is connected and the most likely place to trigger a deep, hard slab avalanche is if you’re unlucky enough to find a weak area within the snowpack. Once initiated today’s avalanches will be large, dangerous, and possibly unsurvivable!

None of us has a pair of snowpack x-ray glasses that we can slip on and look inside the snowpack to see where the snow is strong or weak. However we do have the ability to make choices in what type of terrain we travel in this weekend. We’ve all been a bit powder starved this winter and now the bigger terrain is starting to fill in. However, this would be a good weekend to be conservative with your terrain choices and slope angles.

Mid and lower elevation terrain received less snow and winds were quieter throughout the storm. With less stress being added to the snowpack, the deeper instabilities are not quite as widespread.

Utilizing your safe travel skills will be a key factor today, especially if you’re getting into steep, upper elevation terrain. Ride or ski a slope one at a time, get out of the way and into a safe location at the bottom of the slope, and always keep an eye on your partner. In addition, carry the appropriate rescue gear such as an avalanche beacon, shovel, and probe and know how to use these tools.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today on all upper elevation aspects, above 10,000’, on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees. Dangerous human triggered avalanches are probable.

At mid elevations sluffing within the new snow will be the main concern today, though there is still a MODERATE or localized danger of triggering an avalanche into deeper, buried, weak layers on northwest through east facing aspects on slopes that are steeper than about 35 degrees.

On slopes less steep than about 35 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW. Even if you’re playing on low angle terrain this weekend be aware of steep slopes above and adjacent to you.

Mountain Weather:

A weak system which is tracking to the south of the state will produce mostly cloudy skies and light snow showers. Temperatures will remain cold with highs at 8,000’ near 20 degrees and at 10,000’ in the low teens. Overnight lows will dip into the single digits. Winds will be light and northerly and should remain in the 5-15 mph range along the ridges. Sunday and Monday look to be mostly sunny and slightly warmer. There is a developing storm system on tap for Tuesday/Wednesday though right now the computer models are waffling a bit as to its strength and track.

General Information:

If you’re getting out and about please let us know what you’re seeing, especially if you see or trigger an avalanche. Call 1-800-662-4140, or 801-231-2170, or email to [email protected] or fax to 801-524-6301. Your observations could help to save someone’s life. Many thanks to those of you who called in accurate and timely snowpack information this week!

We will be offering free snowmobile specific avalanche education this year. To schedule a talk and or a field day please call 801-231-2170.

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 will update this advisory by 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 2, 2003.

Thanks for calling!