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Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Thursday morning, February 20, 2020
In the wind zone, at and above treeline, lingering wind drifts may react to our additional weight and a MODERATE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE on steep, wind drifted slopes, especially those with an easterly component to its aspect. Avalanches breaking into deeper, buried weak layers are becoming less likely over time, but are still possible. Usual suspect terrain includes- steep, rocky, upper elevation terrain, especially slopes exhibiting a thin, shallow snowpack. Remember- any slide that breaks to old snow, instantly throws a curve ball at your day.
Lose the wind and you lose much of the problem. Wind sheltered mid and low elevation terrain offers generally LOW avalanche danger.
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Weather and Snow
Currently-
High pressure camps out over the region delivering clear skies and inverted temperatures with ridgetops registering in the mid teens whilst trailheads clock in near zero degrees... Farenehit.... not Kelvin. Along the high ridges, northeast winds ramped up right before midnight and blew in the 20's and 30's for a few hours, but have since relaxed. On a go-anywhere base, the vast majority of our terrain offers excellent riding right now, especially mid elevation, wind sheltered slopes.
Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.
For today-
After a crisp start, look for sunny skies with highs climbing into the mid 20's. Winds remain light and variable, blowing 10-20 mph along the high peaks.
Futurecast-
The next best chance for a storm snow reset comes Saturday or Sunday, though it looks like most of the energy dives south.
Recent Avalanches
With a little persuasion (yeah I know a guy from Jersey who can get the job done :)... avalanches continue breaking to weak snow, especially in terrain that avalanched early this season, or what we call "repeater" paths. The slide in the image above on a steep, east facing slope in the wind zone, illustrates the characteristics of a persistent weak layer.
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
Lingering wind slabs like in the image above, still lurk on steep, wind drifted slopes. And while the majority of Sunday nights storm snow instabilities rapidly settled out and gained strength, it's not a "just pull the trigger and see what happens" kinda day. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of places where you could initiate an avalanche that'll boss you around. So... before center-punching a big slope, gather some information by tweaking small test slopes similar in aspect, elevation, and slope angle to what you wanna ride. See how they're reacting and then make fact based decisions on your terrain choices. This strategy leads to a successful day of powder riding, high fives at the trailhead as well as when you roll home to your family this evening.
Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
Another steep, east facing, repeater slide path came to life yesterday. This is the second slide breaking to weak snow in as many days and it's a good indicator that this avalanche dragon still exists and can react with a little provocation.
The good news is... where the snowpack is deep, it's happy in its own skin. However, snow is a curious medium and all we need to do is find one inconsistency or a shallow zone, maybe around a rock or bush, collapse the pack, and now we've got a bigger slide than we might've bargained for. So my safe travel strategy is to think about suspect terrain I want to continue avoiding and that includes steep, rocky terrain and slopes that avalanched near the ground earlier in the season.
General Announcements
The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Friday Feb. 21st.
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
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.