Wasatch Cache National Forest

In partnership with: The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center, Utah Department of Public Safety Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, and Utah State Parks

The Utah Avalanche Center Home page is: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/

Avalanche advisory

Thursday, January 02, 2003

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Good Morning. This is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Thursday, January 02, 2003, and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

Avalanche Conditions:

I’ve always preached that although most avalanches happen during storms, most avalanche ACCIDENTS happen on sunny days following storms, and especially on sunny Saturday’s or holidays following storms. Yesterday was a textbook example as hoards of people swarmed into the backcountry on New Year’s Day to enjoy the foot of new snow and sunny weather. By my count, yesterday there were at least 10 large, human-triggered avalanches in the backcountry, which caught at least 4 people with one injury and some lost equipment. The list is way too long to mention here, but I’ve read the list with the details onto our more detailed avalanche advisory line at 364-1591 and I’ll post the list on the web with some photos later this morning at the usual address www.avalanche.org, click on Salt Lake and then on Advisories. It should make for some entertaining and educational reading and viewing.

But here’s a short synopsis: One lone skier with his dog triggered a slide in Limelight, near Park City and injured his knee when he hit a tree. An out of bounds skier triggered one and rode it down in Dutches Draw near the Canyons and I watched as a line of other skiers kept jumping into the identical part of the slope that didn’t slide right next to it, which is pure, absolute craziness. Another skier triggered one in the Dog Lake Chutes area near Brighton and lost their skis and poles. One skier triggered and rode one on Ben Lomond Peak near Ogden. Three out-of-bounds skiers triggered another slide on Pine Cone Ridge near Park City, another one on Cardiac Ridge, Patsy Marley, Clayton Peak and South Monitor. Get the picture?

The problem is that sunshine makes people feel great but the weak layers buried in the snowpack don’t even know it’s sunny. They just feel the sudden, additional weight of a foot of snow and they’re cranky about it. Yesterday, absolutely everyone reported widespread collapsing of the snow as they traveled along. In fact yesterday, I think every square inch of snow collapsed that I traveled across all day long and one of those collapses from a completely flat ridge triggered a 3 foot deep, 80 foot wide avalanche 50 feet away on a steep rollover. That’s what I call sensitive, brittle snow. Only a few slopes have slid naturally on their own, but many slopes are just hanging in the balance just waiting for a trigger. They’re kind of like the tension in the air before a bar room brawl. You need to give somebody a thump to get things going.

For the past two weeks, we have been calling these conditions considerable danger, which means that human triggered avalanches are PROBABLE. Speaking of bars, most people who would never go into a bar where they had a probable chance of being beat up or killed, but for whatever reason, these same people don’t have a problem with it when they’re jumping into a steep, powder-filled slope on a sunny day. It’s really a simple game with simple rules. Just say no to terrain that we’re calling considerable.

Bottom Line (SLC, Park City, Provo and Ogden Area Mountains):

The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today on slopes which face the north half of the compass, plus east facing slopes above about 8,500’ that are about 35 degrees or steeper, which is about the steepness of a black diamond slope at a ski resort. There is a MODERATE avalanche danger on slopes facing the south half of the compass, which will rise today to CONSIDERABLE as the steep slopes heat up in the sun. There’s a LOW danger on slopes less than 30 degrees, which are not connected to steeper slopes, and you can have plenty of fun on low angled slopes without being in danger.

Mountain Weather:

As a high pressure ridge builds over us today we’ll see dramatically warmer temperatures with the 8,000’ temperatures getting up into the 40’s and the ridge top temperatures around freezing with light westerly winds. We should have some increasing high clouds today in advance of a weak system going mostly north of us on Friday and again on Sunday. We don’t see any significant snow on the way for at least another week.

General Information:

Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be flying today in mid and upper elevation Cardiff Fork, upper Silver Fork, with a home run in Grizzly gulch.

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center will offer an intensive 3-day avalanche class January 18-20. You can sign up at the Black Diamond Retail Store or call them at 801-278-0233.

To report backcountry snow and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or trigger an avalanche, call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email to [email protected] or fax 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 7:30 on Friday.

Thanks for calling!

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National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.

For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings:

http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm