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Forecast for the Salt Lake Area Mountains

Drew Hardesty
Issued by Drew Hardesty for
Thursday, March 30, 2017

The danger is LOW. Remember that risk is inherent in mountain travel. As per the danger scale, small avalanches are possible in isolated areas or extreme terrain. If we see more snow and wind than expected, the danger will rise accordingly. Continue to avoid travel on or beneath cornices and glide cracks. Remember that safe travel protocol saves lives.

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Special Announcements

TODAY is Love Utah Give Utah day. Between now and then, when you donate to the charities that make living in Utah better using this link, you will automatically be entered to win a 3 year lease on a 2017 Subaru Impreza from Mark Miller Subaru. Plus getting karma points and benefiting your community. The Utah Avalanche Center counts on partners like you for support. https://loveutgiveut.razoo.com/story/Utahavalanchecenter

Support Wasatch Backcountry Rescue at the 3rd Annual Bow Wow fundraiser TONIGHT at 6pm at OP Rockwells in Park City. Details HERE.

Weather and Snow

Skies are mostly cloudy and we should start to see some spits and sputters of precipitation in the coming hours. Winds and temps picked up overnight with current anemometers humming from the west-southwest at 15-20mph with gusts to 30. Mountain temps are just around freezing. Riding conditions may be a but rugged today with varying degrees of breakable and trapdoor crust overlain by whatever we see during the day; which, I expect, won't be much.

Recent Avalanches

Taking the brunt of the heat, the steep paths above Little Cottonwood yesterday shed much of Monday's storm snow, leaving decent debris piles in the tracks and aprons. It was reported that a cow moose standing in the Little Pine runout looked up at the oncoming wet avalanche and nimbly stepped out of the way. It is unknown whether she was wearing any avalanche rescue gear, but it's clear that we need to continue our outreach to more user groups and populations out there.

Backcountry skiers reported active conditions on a variety of aspects along the Cascade ridgeline of the Provo mountains yesterday with active ski cuts of 4-8" wind slabs in the steep upper elevation terrain. As expected in the central Wasatch, shallow wet push-a-lanches became the rule and not the exception.

And another thing. It occurs to me that only tragedy, poor decision-making and the like are the only things that make the headlines. You never see a situation where the hero of the story describes going into the mountains with a well-researched plan and a good and competent partner...observes conditions not to her liking...and - get this - makes a calculated decision to TURN AROUND. A good nod of respect...and you can read more here. Generally speaking on our backcountry learning curves, we develop our skiing and riding skills first, followed by our understanding of snow and avalanches...but it's our decision-making skills that often lag far behind.

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Avalanche Problem #1
Normal Caution
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Remember that risk is inherent in mountain travel. Considerations for today:

  • Shallow pockets of isolated, lingering wind slab may still be present in steep terrain above about 10,000'.
  • Any place that feels punchy or unsupportable due to a poor overnight refreeze should be avoided.
  • Cornices and glide cracks should also be avoided with care.
  • If we see more snow and wind than expected, the danger for new snow activity will rise accordingly.
Additional Information

We'll have mostly cloudy-becoming-overcast skies with a light rain/snow mix for most of the day. A weak "front" arrives this afternoon that may enhance snowfall, but totals for today are likely to be 2-4". Winds will be southwesterly at 20-25mph but they'll lose some steam this afternoon. Temps will rise again to the mid-40s at 8500' and hover around freezing along the ridgelines. This closed circulation of a storm may favor everywhere but the Wasatch range. By early Saturday, I'm hedging my numbers for storm totals of 4-8". Central and southern Utah, the Uintas, perhaps even the Oquirrhs, may all see higher snowfall amounts. For tomorrow, the winds will shift to the east and increase to moderate, particularly in areas north of I-80. By Friday night, the east to northeasterlies will be strong. (Not much good comes with an east wind.) We see a bit of a break for the weekend with another quick hitter on Monday.

General Announcements

Remember your information can save lives. If you see anything we should know about, please help us out by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can also call us at 801-524-5304, email by clicking HERE, or include #utavy in your tweet or Instagram.

To get help in an emergency (to request a rescue) in the Wasatch, call 911. Be prepared to give your GPS coordinates or the run name. Dispatchers have a copy of the Wasatch Backcountry Ski map.

Backcountry Emergencies. It outlines your step-by-step method in the event of a winter backcountry incident.

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry, but no one is hurt and you do not need assistance, please notify the nearest ski area dispatch to avoid a needless response by rescue teams. Thanks.

EMAIL ADVISORY If you would like to get the daily advisory by email you will need to subscribe here.

DAWN PATROL Hotline updated daily by 5-530am - 888-999-4019 option 8.

TWITTER Updates for your mobile phone - DETAILS

UDOT canyon closures: LINK TO UDOT, or on Twitter, follow @UDOTavy, @CanyonAlerts or @AltaCentral

Utah Avalanche Center mobile app - Get your advisory on your iPhone along with great navigation and rescue tools.

Powderbird Helicopter Skiing - Blog/itinerary for the day

Lost or Found something in the backcountry? - http://nolofo.com/

Ski Utah mobile snow updates

To those skinning uphill at resorts: it is critical to know the resort policy on uphill travel. You can see the uphill travel policy for each resort here.

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you shop from Backcountry.com or REI: Click this link for Backcountry.com or this link to REI, shop, and they will donate a percent of your purchase price to the UAC. Both offer free shipping (with some conditions) so this costs you nothing!

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you buy or sell on ebay - set the Utah Avalanche Center as a favorite non-profit in your ebay account here and click on ebay gives when you buy or sell. You can choose to have your seller fees donated to the UAC, which doesn't cost you a penny.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done. This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur

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