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| Advisory: Ogden Area Mountains | Issued by Evelyn Lees for Friday - March 4, 2016 - 6:51am |
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bottom line The avalanche danger is LOW this morning, but the chance of triggering small wet loose sluffs will increase as the day heats up. Even with a Low Danger, avalanches can still happen in isolated places, and even a very small slide can have consequences in continuously steep terrain or above cliff bands.
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special announcement The Wasatch Powderkeg is going on this weekend at Brighton Resort. We are offering on-snow clinics to help refresh your mountain skills or learn new ones. This is a great way to prepare yourself and your partners for those big spring objectives! Click here for the full list of clinics and event details. Voile, La Sportiva, Scarpa and Camp will all be offering free gear demos! The Utah Avalanche Center greatly values our longtime partnership with our world-class resorts and is blowing out the remaining donated lift tickets from Snowbird, Snowbasin, Sundance, and Nordic Valley with reduced prices. Every penny you spend benefits the Utah Avalanche Center. Check out our Garage Sale! Chock full of sweet backcountry gear - you can find the goods on our Facebook page here. |
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current conditions Winter continues to hibernate, and is nowhere to be seen. Temperatures this morning in the Ogden area mountains have been cooling the past few hours as skies cleared - currently, they are close to freezing along the high ridge lines, and are in the mid to upper 30s at the low to mid elevations. The northwesterly winds are exceptionally light in the Ogden area mountains – averaging less than 10 mph at almost all locations.
If you can find smooth, untracked surfaces, there is still a bit of soft, dry snow on highest elevation, steep, northerly facing slopes and good supportable corn on east through south through west facing slopes as they warm. Conditions are great for traveling far distances on the firm snow. However, as the day heats up, the snow at the mid and low elevations and on sunny rocky slopes gets punchy and unsupportable in spots.
There are plenty of slick, hard snow surfaces early in the morning, where “slide for life” is a concern. |
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recent activity There were no reports of avalanches from the backcountry yesterday. Ogden area resorts reported the usual minor wet loose sluffs and "push-a-lanches". |
| type | aspect/elevation | characteristics |
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LIKELIHOOD
 LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
 LARGE
SMALL
TREND
 INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
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description
A poor overnight refreeze combined with another day of sun, warm temperatures and light winds makes wet snow avalanches the primary concern. Wet loose sluffs can be triggered today on steep slopes as the snow heats up. They could have more serious consequences in continuously steep terrain where you could go for a long ride or any place where you will get pushed into trees or off a cliff. Glide avalanches could occur where the snowpack sits on smooth rock slabs, including Stairs Gulch, Broads Fork, and Mill B South of Big Cottonwood Canyon. The old cornices often break back further than expected, so stay well back from the edges and if you need to cross below them, travel quickly to minimize exposure. Moab forecaster, Eric Trembeth snapped this photo on Lone Peak of a wet loose sluff - an example of terrain where being caught even in a small slide would carry you through rocks.
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weather Someone hit the Pause button on winter… It’s going to be another spring-like day, with ridge line temperatures remaining near freezing and 8,000’' temperatures rising into the upper 40s to near 50. The northwesterly winds will be light, with most stations in the 5 to 10 mph range. Speeds across the highest peaks could reach 15 to 20 mph at times. Saturday will be another toasty day, with increasing southerly winds ahead of a small storm Sunday, which should bring strong winds, lightning, and 6 to 12 inches of much needed snow. |
| 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/ 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.
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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 exist.