There is a LOW danger on most slopes in the backcountry, and you'll find generally safe avalanche conditions today. Exceptions and pockets with a MODERATE danger exist on steep wind drifted slopes, mainly at upper elevations, where you might trigger shallow wind slab avalanches or cornice falls. Most of these should be of the soft and manageable variety, but don't let a small avalanche become a big deal by slamming you into trees or other terrain traps below.

Evaluate the snow and terrain carefully and, as always, continue to use good travel habits....

Well, the Bear River Mountains didn't get much snow, but at least yesterday's storm was enough to free us from the valley smog. We found nice refreshed and fast shallow powder conditions yesterday, and the snow was best in sheltered shady areas where the re-crystallized underlying snow is still soft. You can still feel crusts and old tracks under the couple of fresh inches, but at least most slopes look smooth and white again.

The Tony Grove Snotel reported about 3 inches of new snow from yesterday morning, containing 3/10ths of an inch of water equivalent. There is 72 inches on the total snow stake containing 94% of normal water for the date. The Campbell Scientific weather station on Logan Peak recorded south winds averaging in the 30 mph range for several hours Thursday night, with gusts to around 60, but they've diminished significantly in the past 12 hours. The station currently shows 5 mph east winds and its 15 degrees at 9700'.

Activity yesterday in the Wasatch range included a few fairly sizable loose snow avalanches and some small triggered soft wind slabs.

Locally last weekend, a snowmobiler triggered and was caught and carried by a persistent wind slab avalanche in White Pine Canyon. Luckily, he wasn't buried or injured. The avalanche, on a northeast facing slope at around 8300' in elevation was around 2' deep and 75' wide. (photo) And, there were a good number of natural loose wet avalanches during the week on southeast through southwest facing slopes in the region caused by midday solar heating. (2-3-09 photos)

A closed low will move eastward out of southern California today and continue to bring stormy conditions and snowfall to the mountains of Central Utah....The National Weather Service is only giving the mountains around Logan a 20% chance of snow today. At least we aren't going right back into a high pressure system, and the weather looks unsettled through the coming week. Our next real chance for accumulating snow comes on Sunday night and into Monday, and another storm appears to be setting up for later on in the week.

Our "Know before You Go" video is available online..... (click HERE to watch it)

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.

I will update this advisory by around 7:30 Monday morning.