Thanks to the crew at Park City Pro Patrol for hosting this event. Hope to see y'all at Park City HS Tuesday night.
Yesterday's storm slammed southern Utah, but wrap around moisture delivered a couple inches of light density snow to the eastern front. Unfortunately for us, powerful storms churning in the four corners produce big east-northeast winds for the Uinta's and yesterday's storm system didn't buck the trend. Along the high peaks winds raged into the 50's and 60's and essentially crashed the great powder party we've been having. Winds switched to the northwest early this morning and are currently blowing 20-40 mph along the high ridges. Under clear skies it's cold with most mountain location reporting temperatures near zero degrees. You're gonna have to get creative today to find snow that isn't wind jacked. Low elevation wind sheltered terrain could be an exotic way to fly.
Trip reports and observations are found here.
We couldn't see anything yesterday, but this slide below from Sunday captures the essence of what we're dealing with.
It's pretty clear from this image above... two distinct avalanche problems. Shallow wind drifts and of course our problem child, deeper buried weak layers.
This "repeater" slide in Upper Weber Canyon, broke to old snow near the ground Sunday and was triggered from the top of slope on a steep Northeast facing slope. (Deutschlander photo)
Recent avalanche observations are found here.
See or trigger an avalanche? Shooting cracks? Hear a collapse? It's simple. Go here to fill out an observation.