The National Weather Service has issued a
Winter Storm Watch for tomorrow through Thursday, and significant snow and drifting will cause rising avalanche danger in the backcountry as we head into the week.
The dense snow from this weekend's storm really helped things, but shallow early season snow conditions exist, with about a foot-and-a-half of total snow covering the rocks on most upper elevation slopes. Extreme caution is required to avoid hitting shallowly buried rocks, stumps, or down trees. Avalanches are possible, and dangerous conditions may develop on upper elevation slopes with prefrontal winds ahead of the next powerful storm. The main issue today will be deposits of wind-drifted heavy new snow that could produce soft slab avalanches. The snow is so shallow that people could sustain serious injuries if they are caught and carried over rocks in even a small avalanche.
Even if you're not planning to get onto the snow, it's never too early to start thinking about avalanches. A few things to consider doing:
- Attend USAW and learn more about avalanches and decision making. (scroll down to the bottom of this page for more info and links)
- Sign up for an avalanche class.
- Take the all-new online avalanche courses the UAC built for Know Before You Go or take other online courses listed on the KBYG website (Develop skills -> Online Learning).
- Get your avalanche rescue gear ready for winter. Put fresh batteries in your transceiver and update the firmware. Inspect your shovel and probe. Get your airbag backpack ready by possibly doing a test deployment and update the firmware if it is an electric version.
