US Forest Service Manti-La Sal National Forest

Introduction: Good morning, this is Dave Medara with the USFS Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Sunday, March 26th at 8am. This advisory will expire in 24 hours.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW GROOMING EQUIPMENT HERE. Check out photos of a large avalanche in Dorry Canyon here.

To see past advisories check out the ARCHIVE. To see current conditions go to our WEATHER PAGE. To see photos go to the AVIPHOTOS page.

Please give us your observations from the field HERE. The more observations we get, the better this forecast can be.

General Conditions:

After Last night’s wind our snow instrumentation is showing a new loss of snow, but it looks like a trace of snow has fallen since about 5 am. Skiing and riding conditions have been great for the past week or so with great supportable crust skiing on south facing slopes and good powder skiing and riding on North Facing slopes. You can expect to find breakable crusts on easterly on westerly aspects, but they will firm up if and when they see a few more melt-freeze cycles. Conditions for snow machines are excellent. The Geyser Pass Trail is in great shape for skate skiing and cross country as the race course for the LaSalloppet has been set. The Road to the Geyser Pass Trailhead is in good shape but very sloppy in the PM hours when things get soft.

Mountain Weather: (At 10,500’) –

Today: Areas of snow before 11am. Partly cloudy, with a high around 48. Breezy, with a west northwest wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 26. North wind between 5 and 10 mph.
Monday: Partly cloudy, with a high around 45. South southwest wind between 5 and 15 mph.
Monday Night: A 30 percent chance of snow, mainly after 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 30. South southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.

Weather Station/ Location	Snow Depth (HS): in./cm	New Snow (HN) in./cm	8:00 a.m. Temp (F)	Current Observations: Wind, 48 hour snow
Geyser Pass Trailhead (9,600’): (snotel link)	44”	trace	24	Trace new
Geyser Pass	85” est		N/a	Settled Powder
Gold Basin and South Mountain	60” /152 cm	trace	n/a
Pre-Laurel Peak Station (11,705’)	N/a	N/a	11 degrees @ 0700	Moderate Northwesterly- Major wind from south overnight

Avalanche Conditions: (Link to the International Avalanche Danger Scale here) –

We’ve been out and about quite a bit lately with Bruce Tremper from the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center and taken a look a quite a bit of snow. What we are finding is mostly strong snow with the major variation being in the depth, as there was simply no snow in some places before the big dump 2 weeks ago. Weaker layers that we have been seeing all winter long are starting to gain strength. Temperature gradients that cause snow grains in the pack to deteriorate have been eliminated by the thick new blanket of high density snow. Things are looking good, folks are getting out on some of the bigger slopes and the stakes are going up. We have been feeling pretty good about the snowpack but we haven’t been everywhere and with faceted crystals still buried in the snowpack we are hesitant to drop the avalanche hazard below MODERATE because we feel that there are still locations in the La Sals where an avalanche could still be triggered. Likely areas are where there was a thin layer of old snow before the dump 2 weeks ago. Where these areas are is anyone’s guess, hence our hesitation to drop the hazard lower. This is certainly a conservative rating, but the only way to go in the La Sals. Moderate danger means that human triggered avalanches are still possible, so take the time to look at the snow on a slope before you jump in. Ski one at a time and get out of the way at the end of your runs. Additionally, watch out for wet slides in the afternoon when things get sloppy on solar slopes. The spring change is on. We’ll update this message Monday morning, Thanks for calling.