Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center

US Forest Service Manti-La Sal National Forest

Introduction:

Welcome back for the 2003-04 winter season! This is Evan Stevens with the USFS Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Tuesday, November 18, at 7:30am.

Mountain Weather:

The frontal passage during the day yesterday left us with 3”-4” of new snow and some blustery winds that eventually shifted to the N-NW. Those winds should continue to blow today at around 10-20mph. Under clear and sunny skies, we should reach some high temperatures in the mid 30’s at about 9,500’. Tonight, skies will remain clear and cold as we reach a low temperature in the teens. Light winds at 5-10mph from the W-SW will start to wrap around to the E-SE. Tomorrow should remain sunny and clear again as our hopefully short lived high pressure system lingers on giving us highs near 40 with light winds. Thursday we may see our pattern change as the next system starts to move into our area from the Pacific.

General Conditions:

An admirable start to the winter is underway. Currently, there are 15” on the ground at the Geyser Pass Trailhead, 22” in Gold Basin, and about 27” at 11,000’. However, this is not quite enough to cover up all those early season obstacles, so caution, knee pads and a little patience are advised. But you can still find some powder skiing and riding in the sheltered locations. The road crews have been out earlier in the season, but currently the road is a bit of hard pack snow with a light dusting on top.

Nordic and Skate Skiing:

The road has a good base, and now all we need is some snowcat and snowmobile traffic to improve things. Skating would not be advised just yet, but classic you could get away with.

Avalanche Conditions:

As yesterday was our first field day, I must say that so far I am smiling. A somewhat consistent storm pattern bringing us warm and wet conditions has left us a fairly strong snowpack and has not allowed the early season creation of our foe the facet as was shown to us in the field by the lack of collapsing and whoompfing sounds. With 24” to 30” of snow around treeline and strong winds from the W to NW to N yesterday, we definitely have the ingredients for slab avalanches to occur. We did find some hard slabs yesterday, but they were fairly unreactive, and will continue to stabilize under our current weather pattern. For now, the avalanche danger is MODERATE on slopes steeper than 35 degrees at and above treeline in wind affected terrain. The avalanche danger is LOW in all other locations.

Remember to brush up on your avalanche skills and put fresh batteries in your beacon.

Public Announcements:

We would like to Welcome Max Forgensi from Breckenridge to our team. We would also like any one who is interested in our volunteer/observer program to contact us at 259-7155. I will update this advisory again on Thursday morning.