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Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Saturday morning, February 22, 2020
In a sea of LOW avalanche danger, lingering wind drifts on steep upper elevation, leeward slopes may react to our additional weight and pockets of MODERATE avalanche danger exist. Making up a small portion of the terrain available to ride today, human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE in the wind zone, especially on slopes with an easterly component to its aspect. While more the exception than the rule- avalanches breaking into deeper, buried weak layers 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.
Wind sheltered mid and low elevation terrain offers generally LOW avalanche danger.
Low
Moderate
Considerable
High
Extreme
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Special Announcements
The UAC's Avy Awareness Auction is currently underway with tons of great gear, jewelry, artwork and experiences available. Visit the auction page here to help support the UAC's spring avalanche awareness and outreach efforts.
Click here for more details.
And... a new version of the UAC IOS application is now available on the Apple App Store. This version fixes many of the issues that occur when running IOS 13.
Click here for more details.
Weather and Snow
Currently-
High clouds drifted into the region overnight as a storm system slides through state, but unfortunately, most of the storminess dives to the south of our zone. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, temperatures are in the teens and low 20's. Southwest winds ramped up around lunch time Friday and have been blowing steadily through the night in the 20's and 30's along the high ridges. Recent winds have wrecked a lot of our high alpine terrain, but on a go-anywhere base, seek out mid elevation, wind sheltered slopes, and you'll be rewarded with soft, creamy snow.
Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.
For today-
Look for thickening clouds with high temperatures climbing into the mid 30's. Southwest winds are gonna be a nuisance, blowing in the 30's along the high peaks.
Futurecast-
We might squeak a couple inches of snow out of a trailing storm system tonight into Sunday morning, but accumulations look negligible.
Recent Avalanches
Lots of wind damage in high alpine terrain and some minor cracking on wind drifted slopes, but no significant avalanche activity to speak of.
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
More the exception than the rule, you may find a tired wind slab or two lurking on steep, wind drifted slopes above treeline. While not particularly widespread or energetic, I always have to remind myself the Uinta's are a big range. So, as I travel from one drainage to another, I definitely don't wanna get caught off guard. 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.
Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
Another steep, east facing, repeater slide path came to life Wednesday. This is the second slide breaking to weak snow this week 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.
Additional Information
Ted stomped around Double Hill yesterday and has been tracking rime crusts that formed earlier in the month, and if they will be an issue going forward. These are easily found digging down a couple of feet. More on Ted's travels and insight found here.
General Announcements
The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Sunday Feb. 23rd.
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.
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