Wasatch
Cache and Uinta National
Forests 
In partnership with:
Tri-City Performance, Polaris, the
Avalanche ADVISORY
saturDAY
january 6, 2007
The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after
the date and time it’s issued, but will be updated with on Sunday January 7,
2007.
Good Morning! This is Craig
Gordon with the
This
advisory covers the terrain from Daniels Summit, to
Come join us for
a star studded fundraising ride on Saturday Jan. 27th. Click here for more details or call 801-963-3819.
Current Conditions:
Thursday’s storm system
turned out to be rather productive for us with storm totals at the upper
elevations close to 14”. It was a well distributed storm and even the southern
half of the range got in on the act where totals are just about a foot. Skies
cleared out late last night and as you might’ve guessed, an extra layer or two
this morning is going to be the ticket. Currently temperatures are hovering in
the single digits, just about 3 degrees at both 8,000’ and 10,000’. Winds are
blowing out of the west-northwest with hourly averages in the teens and gusts
in the upper 20’s along the ridges. The most wind exposed locations are
experiencing gusts in the low 40’s. The riding and turning conditions have made
a remarkable turnaround in the past two days, but the storm snow is very light
in density and in many locations you can still feel the old hard snow surface
underneath.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday I found
the new snow very sensitive to my additional weight, all 160 lbs of it, and I
could easily initiate long running sluffs on steep slopes. My partner and I found
only a few shallow new soft slabs along the ridges and these were very
manageable, predictably breaking at or below our feet. Yesterday’s relatively
benign avalanche conditions will be changing today as winds increase in
strength during the day and rapidly begin to form more widespread wind
drifting. I’d suspect by days end, slabs will become more sensitive to the weight
of a rider and may break out a little deeper and wider than you might expect.
Keep in mind, our snowpack is a complex patchwork of weak snow and hard slick
bed surfaces and now there’s a slab on top of all this junk… so we have all the
ingredients for an avalanche. Now you don’t need to be snow scientist to ride safely
today, but you should look for obvious clues to unstable snow. The biggest is
recent avalanches on the same slopes you want to ride on. Also, if you’re seeing
cracking around your sled or skis or experiencing collapsing or “whoomphing”
noises you should re-evaluate your travel plans and maybe think about toning
your slope angles down. Finally, be alert to changing avalanche conditions as
winds increase this afternoon.
If you’re looking
to eliminate the avalanche variable today, stick with low angle, wind sheltered
slopes. The light density snow makes travel easy and low angle slopes are fast
and fun right now, plus you won’t feel that hard scratchy base underneath.
Bottom Line:
In mid and upper elevation terrain at and above tree
line the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on slopes steeper than about 35
degrees, especially those with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. A MODERATE avalanche
danger means human triggered avalanches are possible.
Later today the avalanche danger may rise to CONSIDERABLE in
steep, upper elevation wind loaded terrain. A CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger means
human triggered avalanches are probable.
Mountain Weather:
A
fast moving weather system will arrive late this afternoon and exit this evening.
We might see 1”-3” of snow out this system, but the big news will be the increasing
winds. Westerly winds are expected to
blow in the 30’s this afternoon, gusting into the 60’s and 70’s along the high
ridges tonight. Clouds will be on the increase throughout the day and high
temperatures are expected to reach the upper teens at 8,000’ and near 10
degrees at 10,000’. Overnight lows will be in the mid single digits. High
pressure returns on Sunday through early next week with much warmer
temperatures Monday and Tuesday. A change in the weather pattern may start to
take shape Wednesday as a large trough carves its way into the western states,
setting us up for a stormy end of the week.
Announcements:
Come join us for a star studded fundraising ride on
Saturday Jan. 27th. Click here
for more details.
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!
Free avalanche awareness classes are available. Give
me a call at 801-231-2170 or email [email protected]
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
This advisory is
also available by calling 1-800-648-7433 or
1-888-999-4019.
.