Sale on all remaining discount lift tickets donated to the Utah Avalanche Center from Beaver Mountain, Wolf Mountain, Sundance, and Brian Head: The few remaining tickets are being blown out with all proceeds used to pay for avalanche advisories and education. Go here to get your tickets.
You still might find very nice smooth powder conditions in north facing terrain, but yesterday's warmth affected all other slopes, and surface melt-freeze crusts formed with freezing temperatures overnight. Thinner surface crusts at upper elevations might soften with today's seasonal daytime and prefrontal warming, but cloud cover and increasing southwest winds will probably help keep things fairly cool. The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400' reports a bit more than a foot of new snow from the week, containing 1.5 inches of water. There's 107 inches of total snow, with 131% of average water content for the date. It's already 29 degrees at the 9700' CSI Logan Peak weather station, and I'm reading average wind speeds of around 30 mph from the south currently.
Cross-loaded by recent southwest winds, the fresh snow on these southeast facing slopes in the Wellsville Mountain Wilderness is either crusty or too warm and moist. Good coverage means we'll be able to wait for better snow conditions later in the spring. 3-28-2014
Two people triggered and were caught and carried by separate soft slab avalanches in the Central Wasatch Backcountry on Thursday and another yesterday. No injuries were reported. In the Logan Zone, I noticed evidence some recent natural wind slab and loose wet activity in the Wellsville Range yesterday, and I could see evidence several fresh wet sluffs on west facing slopes of the Bear River Range from town yesterday. Skiers report intentionally triggering shallow slabs in Providence Canyon on Thursday evening, and a snowboarder triggered at small wet sluff yesterday on the back side of Beaver Mt.
Visit our Backcountry Observations Page for details on the season's activity.
A fresh natural soft slab avalanche in upper Shumway Canyon on the east side of the Wellsvilles, triggered by cornice-fall. 3-28-2014.