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Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Saturday morning, January 4, 2020
At upper elevations in the wind zone, a CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are PROBABLE, especially on steep, wind drifted slopes, and particularly in terrain with an easterly component to its aspect. Once initiated, a fresh wind drift may break to weak snow near the ground, creating a larger avalanche than you might expect.
Not as widespread, you'll find older drifts reactive to our additional weight in mid elevation terrain as well, where a MODERATE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE on steep, wind drifted leeward slopes.
Today's exit strategy-
Wind sheltered, low and mid elevation terrain and big open meadows with no steep slopes above or adjacent to where you're riding generally offers LOW avalanche danger and human triggered avalanches are unlikely.
Low
Moderate
Considerable
High
Extreme
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Weather and Snow
Currently-
Skies are clear, temperatures in the low and mid 20's, and there's hardly a breath of wind even along the high ridges. You'll find a bit of wind damage in high alpine terrain from earlier this week, but lose a little elevation, head to wind sheltered terrain and you'll be rewarded with soft, surfy snow. The range has excellent early season coverage with total snow depths averaging close to 4' of settled snow.
Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.
For today-
Skies remain clear and it'll be a stunning day in the mountains with high temperatures climbing into the mid 30's. Winds increase, switch to the northwest, and blow into the 30's and 40's as the day progresses.
Furturecast-
Recent Avalanches
Yesterday, a group of riders triggered a very large slide, just outside the Uinta forecast area, several drainages south of Strawberry Reservoir. The avalanche occurred on a very steep, heavily wind loaded, upper elevation, southeast facing slope. Reported as 800' wide, this large slide broke to weak snow near the ground. The big heads up here is... this is a sunny slope, where we generally head to when there's elevated avy danger, expecting to avoid weak snow issues usually found on shady slopes. However, strong northwesterly winds earlier this week, coupled with nearly a foot of midweek storm snow helped connect this very stout slab. And this all rests on lower density snow from the Christmas storm.... strong snow on weak snow. All we need to do is roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. Stoked everyone is OK and deeply appreciate the great reporting from this crew of riders!
To view additional trip reports and recent avalanche activity, simply click here.
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Avalanche Problem #1
Wind Drifted Snow
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
Pretty easy to see in the image above... winds have blown from the right to left (windward side to leeward side). The leeward side of the slope is where we're gonna trigger an avalanche today.
Strong, mid week winds had no problem whipping our recent storm snow into sensitive drifts, creating a dense, cohesive layer of snow. The vast majority of these slabs have settled and won't be quite as reactive as they were just a few days ago. However, here's the problem... a stronger layer of snow rests on top of pre-existing surface snow which was light and fluffy. So we've got an upside down cake... strong snow on top of weak snow. This combo often reacts to our additional weight and it's today's main avalanche problem. Found mostly on upper elevation leeward slopes, terrain features like chutes and gullies are cross-loaded as well. Of course, your best bet for avoidance is to simply steer clear of any fat, rounded piece of snow, especially if it sounds hollow like a drum. In addition, look for shooting cracks in the snow which is a sure sign of unstable conditions.
Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
We don't trigger scary avalanches where the pack is deep... we trigger them where the pack is thin, like around a rock or bush we can't see under the snow. A few days ago, Ted dug around a shallow spot near Gold Hill which harbored old October snow. You can clearly see the problematic structure underneath the snow card in Ted's pit profile above.
In general we've got a great start to the season and our pack is looking encouragingly solid, especially where it's deep and nearing 4' of total settled snow.... so that's good news. However, the jury is still out in terrain where the pack remains thin and has old October snow near the ground. Sketchy terrain not only includes the usual suspects- steep, rocky, upper elevations slopes facing the north half of the compass, it now includes a few new members to the lineup and that's terrain that avalanched as a result of either the Thanksgiving or mid December storm cycles. But adding a wild card to the mix, we're now getting the first clues that upper elevation southerly facing slopes which strong snow resting on weak snow underneath a post Christmas suncrust, should be considered suspect as well. Wow.... lots going on!
No matter how you cut it, we're dealing with a persistent weaknesses in the snowpack and anything persistent in our pack is tricky and can take long periods of time to heal. So that means, you can ride some slopes and be good to go, while others just wait for us to roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. And here's the danger... once initiated, avalanches have a distinct possibility of breaking deeper and wider than you might expect.
Meanwhile.... we've been very focused on upper elevation, shady slopes, but I was curious how shallow snow looks at lower elevations. My travels yesterday steered me towards lower and mid elevation north facing terrain and the viddy above illustrates how that early season structure is looking. A great exit strategy is to meadow skip in low angle terrain where you can have a blast!
Additional Information
Thanks to the generous support of our Utah ski resorts and Ski Utah, we have discount lift tickets available. All proceeds support the UAC. Get your tickets HERE.
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General Announcements
The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Sunday Jan. 5th.
This forecast is updated daily by 7:00 AM.
In the mean-time, if you see or trigger an avalanche or just wanna let me know what you're seeing you can reach me directly at 801-231-2170
It'll be a minute or two before we're riding, but while you're waiting....
This is a great time of year to schedule one of our free avy awareness presentations.
You can email me directly [email protected]
The information in this forecast is from the US Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content.
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