Forecast for the Moab Area Mountains
Tuesday morning, December 11, 2012
LUNA and the Grand County Search and Rescue will be holding their annual trainings on Saturday, December 15th. The weekend will be a busy one with new snow and Christmas Tree permits. Please park respectfully.
LUNA is up and running! On Tuesday, volunteer Matt Hebberd and I took the grooming equipment successfully up to the end of Gold Basin road. Corduroy is officially in for the 2012-2013 winter season. Cross country and skate skiing will be your best bet for recreation in the La Sals, with a potential ice skating opportunity at both Warner and Oowah Lakes.
You can click here for mountain weather links in the La Sals and Abajo Mountains. You can also navigate to this page from the "WEATHER" drop down menu above.
As for the backcountry, the word can only be grim, there is only a trace of snow in the Abajos. La Sal Mountain has 30% normal SWE and Camp Jackson at a measly 9% SWE. Basin wide this equates to 24% of normal. The southeast Utah watershed is over twice as dry as the rest of the state.
Rest assured, the mountains will still be there. We will wait for the snow or head to some beautiful mountain range somewhere else.
No avalanche activity to report but rest assured, the shallow early season snow covering or North and Easterlies will be the breeding grounds of avalanche dragons of the future.
LUNA will be holding its annual groomer training on Saturday, December 15th. Interested? Call Kirstin Peterson at 260-0042 for more details.
The Utah Avalanche Center will be holding a Basic Avalanche Awareness talk on Friday, January 18th at 6:30 pm at the Grand County Library. The following day, January 19th, there will be an avalanche rescue clinic at the Geyser Pass TH.
On February 1st through the 3rd, the UAC-Moab is hosting a Level I AIARE Avalanche Course. Interested? Call Max Forgensi at his office phone (435-636-3355) for more details and to sign up.