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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the Forest Service Utah
Current Conditions:
Today at
Avalanche Conditions:
In late breaking news,
backcountry explosive testing this morning by the helicopter company produced several
very large avalanches. The entire upper
bowl of Mineral Fork slid this morning as well as the East Fork of Mineral
Fork, Red Baldy in White Pine Canyon and an 800 foot wide avalanche between Red
and White Baldy. These are all going at
least 4 feet deep, into old snow and are very large dangerous avalanches. They were easily triggered by explosives,
indicating that skiers, boarders and snowmobilers could have easily triggered
them as well. In addition, there were
several new avalanches reported from yesterday in the Salt Lake-area mountains. The most
significant one was a natural avalanche in mid Days Fork on a very steep, east
facing slope in the rocks which does not see much ski traffic. It broke 2-5 feet deep and about 300 feet
wide. We’re not sure exactly when this
came down but it was probably in the past day.
Also, some skiers kicking cornices along the Patsy Marley ridgeline
triggered a wind slab on a steep east facing slope, which stepped deeper into
older snow around a rock band that was 2-4 feet deep and about 30 feet
wide. The debris covered up a couple of
climbing tracks from other skiers in the area.
Finally, there was some wet activity yesterday. Backcountry skiers were able to trigger a
couple smaller wet slabs on south facing slopes in the Highway to Heaven area. In addition, there was a natural wet slab off
the west face of Timpanogos yesterday that descended about 2000 vertical feet.
So today, we have two
avalanche problems. First, there is the
lingering deep slab instability. Very
weak faceted snow left over from January and February has been overloaded with
all the new snow recently and continues to produce localized, very large
avalanches. There have been a number of
very close calls these past few days and two deaths over the weekend. These seem to be occurring on steep slopes
with traditionally thin snowpacks that don’t see much
compaction from skiers, boarders and snowmobilers. Although there’s only
localized places where you can still trigger them, the consequences of getting
caught in one of these monsters would likely be unsurvivable.
Most
of them have snapped off trees like toothpicks.
Today, you should continue to avoid slopes steeper than about 35 degrees
that have not slid recently. The hot
ticket today would be to play on avalanche paths that have slid recently
because they are quite safe and they now have last weekend’s nice powder
smoothing out the debris. Just be
careful about not disturbing the un-slid snow. For a list of what has slid during the past
week, call our more detailed report at 364-1591.
The second avalanche problem
today will be the dramatic warming, which should create quite a few wet sluffs
and slabs on steep slopes as they get soggy, especially in the heat of the afternoon. For instance, this is not a good day to build
a jump at the bottom of
Bottom Line:
As usual, it’s hard to put a danger rating on this
kind of instability. Yes, there’s only moderate
probability of triggering an avalanche but if you do it will likely be huge and
very deadly. Traditionally thinner
snowpack areas on steep slopes which did not slide during the last storm would have
a CONSIDERABLE
danger. Also, steep slopes that become
soggy with sun and warmer temperatures will rise to a CONSIDERABLE danger today.
(Provo Area
Mountains)
Same as
(
The avalanche danger in the Western Uintas is CONSIDERABLE. Very large and dangerous human triggered
avalanches are possible on steep slopes that did not slide recently.
(Ogden Area Mountains)
MODERATE Danger.
Mountain Weather:
Today is the
first day of spring, so it’s only fitting that we have appropriate
weather. Today should be mostly sunny
with possibly some scattered, variable high clouds. Ridge top winds will blow about 20 mph from
the west with ridge top temperatures rising to the lower 30’s. Down at 8,000’ temperatures will climb into
the lower 40’s with an overnight low in the upper teens. Looks like even warmer on Thursday and
possibly Friday, with another storm coming in for the weekend.
General Information:
Wasatch
Powderbird Guides will be flying two ships today, one in
To
report backcountry snow and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or
trigger an avalanche, you can leave a message at (801) 524-5304 or
1-800-662-4140. Or you can e-mail an
observation to [email protected], or you can fax an observation to
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.
Tom
Kimbrough will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
For
more detailed weather information go to our Mountain Weather Advisory
National
Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: