Provo Avalanche Advisory

Forecaster: Drew Hardesty

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

On March 11th and 13th, the Utah Avalanche Center and SheJumps will team up to provide a Backcountry 101 class for women only. We will have a Friday night lecture and a Sunday field day to teach youthe basics of how to ski / ride avalanche smart in the Utah backcountry andgive you the confidence and skills to make good decisions for yourself and your group in the backcountry. Details here.

There are just a few lift tickets left - to Sundance and Wolf Mountain ski resorts – 100% of the sale of these donated tickets goes to support the Utah Avalanche.

BOTTOM LINE

Danger by aspect and elevation on slopes approaching 35° or steeper.
(click HERE for tomorrow's danger rating)


Danger Rose Tutorial

Most terrain has a LOW danger today.

We will start to develop pockets of MODERATE (L2) for shallow new wind drifts along the high, lee north to east facing slopes. But these won’t kill you. It’s the Pockets of CONSIDERABLE (L3) for isolated deep slab releases that will. These are north to east facing terrain at the mid and upper elevations.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

Riding conditions improved with Thursday’s few inches of new – though I trust it’s a teaser for this next series of storms due to impact northern Utah tomorrow through early Tuesday. We’re seeing the first hints with the mostly cloudy to overcast skies now. Temps, on the rise overnight, are in the upper 20s to low 30s in the 8000' range. Winds are from the west to southwest, already blowing 25-30mph with slightly higher speeds along the highest ridgelines.

RECENT ACTIVITY

Pretty quiet in the backcountry in the central Wasatch and the Provo area mountains, though the Ogden area mountains are still settling out from Thursday’s storm. We did receive a second hand report of a large ‘wall to wall’ natural avalanche near Thurston Peak – that complicated, expansive terrain south of I-84/Weber Canyon – that likely ran Thursday or Thursday night. One to two inches of what we call “snow-water-equivalent” and wind plus perhaps a large cornice fall may have been enough to pull out the larger slide into January layers…

Cooler temps and just enough cloud cover kept a lid on most of the wet activity, though some wet sluffing did occur at the lower elevations.

THREAT #1
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 24 hours.

The increasing southwest winds will likely drift the settling few inches into some shallow drifts along the high east to north facing terrain. These may be up to 8” deep or so with some minor propagation, though test slopes, slope cuts and cornice drops should offer insight into the stability below.

Large natural and human triggered cornice falls over the past few days warrant continued caution along the drifted ridgelines.

THREAT #2
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 12 hours.

Let’s take a look at the recent deep slab activity in the last week.

· Thurston Peak (Ogden mtns) – natural likely Thursday, estimated 9600’ on steep east to northeast aspect…

· Maybird Gulch of Little Cottonwood (SLC mtns) – natural on Wednesday, though of interest, it pulled out directly above the natural from Feb 20th. Looks like the Wednesday natural only had to pull out three sides of the four sides –as the lower/stauchwall (click on ‘starting zone’) was gone from three weeks ago. Roughly 10,400’ east to northeast facing slope.

· Bunnels of the south fork of Provo Canyon (Provo mtns) – intentional cornice drop and step down 4-6’ deep and 1000’ wide on Monday Feb 28 (other info) on a steep north to northeast facing slope at roughly 8650’.

Each of these took a significant load or had some other extenuating circumstances. Still, snowpit tests indicate that these suspect layers remain slow to heal with continued propagation potential. Initiation (or perhaps ‘triggerability’) will still be the key. In summary, it’s a good news/bad news thing. The good news is that there a few places where these can be triggered and it’ll very difficult to trigger them, but the bad news is that they’ll be devastating when they release.

MOUNTAIN WEATHER

The overcast skies are the trickle of water in the wash before the flash flood. Now that I’ve jinxed the next few days…tomorrow we’ll see snow by mid-morning and it should snow throughout the day with a rain/snow line at roughly 6500’. The storm marches through on a westerly flow, with areas north of I-80 looking to pick up maybe 6-10” or so; south of I-80 perhaps 4-8”. The next, colder storm arrives Monday through early Tuesday. In the meantime, we’ll have mostly cloudy to overcast skies, increasing west to southwest winds to 30mph, and temps in the low to mid 20s.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry - especially if you are adjacent to a ski area – please call the following teams to alert them to the slide and whether anyone is missing or not. Rescue teams can be exposed to significant hazard when responding to avalanches, and do not want to do so when unneeded. Thanks.

Salt Lake – Alta Central (801-742-2033)

Ogden – Snowbasin Patrol Dispatch (801-620-1017)

Provo – Sundance Patrol Dispatch (801-223-4150)

Discount Lift tickets: Ski Utah, Backcountry.com, Alta, Deer Valley, Park City, The Canyons, Wolf Mountain, Snowbasin, Beaver Mountain, Brighton, Sundance, and Solitude have donated a limited number of tickets for sale.

Wasatch Powderbird Guides flight plan.

Dawn Patrol Forecast Hotline, updated by 05:30: 888-999-4019 option 8.

Daily observations are frequently posted by 10 pm each evening.

Subscribe to the daily avalanche advisory e-mail click HERE.

UDOT canyon closures UDOT at (801) 975-4838

You have the opportunity to participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting avalanche and snow observations. You can also call us at 801-524-5304 or 800-662-4140, or email by clicking HERE

Donate to your favorite non-profit – The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center. The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work.

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.

We will update this forecast tomorrow morning. Thanks for calling.

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 occur.

This advisory provided by the USDA Forest Service, in partnership with:

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, Utah Division of Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Unified Fire Authority and the friends of the La Sal Avalanche Center. See our Sponsors Page for a complete list.