Hope to see you at the 6th annual "Pray for Snow" FUAC fundraiser dinner on Wednesday, December 2nd at 6:30 at the Italian Place on Federal Ave.

Strong south and west winds along with snowfall over the weekend heightened avalanche conditions in the backcountry. There is a MODERATE danger of persistent wind slab avalanches on steep drifted upper elevation slopes. Sizable triggered slab avalanches are possible above 8500' on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees with preexisting snow.

Snow cover before the weekend's snowfall was limited to north facing upper elevation slopes, and hitting rocks or other shallowly buried obstacles probably still presents the largest safety concern....The Tony Grove Snotel reports about 6 inches of new snow from Sunday, and it was very windy all weekend, with significant wind-drifting observed in exposed terrain.

Riding is still pretty much confined to upper elevation roadways, and you have to slow down and watch out for pedestrians, especially in congested areas like Tony Grove.

Yesterday, I triggered a fairly large avalanche from the ridge in the West Tony Grove Area. I stamped my ski on the drifted snow along the low angled ridge line when the slab pealed out along the ridge in front and washed into the bowl below. The avalanche, triggered at 9400' on a north northeast facing slope was 1 to 2 feet deep, around 300' wide, and ran around 600' vertical. It was a a bit larger and the slope a bit more sensitive than I'd expected, and it caused us to reevaluate our plan and return to safer, lower elevation sheltered terrain.

click:avalanche report

A high pressure system will strengthen over the region in the next couple days, and we'll see fair weather in the mountains and haze trapped in the Valley. Hopefully winds will mix up the air on Thanksgiving Day, and it looks like our next storm is on track for the holiday weekend.

We will be issuing intermittent avalanche advisories as conditions warrant. I'll begin to issue regular advisories in December when the winter season gets rolling....

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We appreciate avalanche and snow observations. If there’s something we should know about give us a call at (435-)755-3638 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at uac@utahavalanchecenter.org. (Fax 801-524-6301).

The information in this advisory is from the U.S. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.