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

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Avalanche advisory

Friday, January 3, 2003

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Good Morning. This is Tom Kimbrough with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Friday, January 3, 2003, and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:

The Wasatch was dusted with a trace to an inch or so of new snow overnight. Temperatures are warm, with overnight lows in the upper twenties and low thirties. Winds got into the twenties for a short while last night and are now out of the west 10 to 20 mph. Southerly facing areas will have variable crusts this morning, with thick but creamy powder on slopes that did not get much sun yesterday.

Our string of human triggered avalanches continued unabated yesterday but fortunately our luck also continued to hold as no one was injured in any of these slides. People triggered slides on Peak 10,420 at the head of Big Cottonwood, in the Raymond Glades west of Gobbler’s Knob, near Desolation Lake in Big Cottonwood, in No-name Bowl on the Park City side of the range and at the head of Cardiff Fork. Several of these slides were remotely triggered from a distance but apparently on 10,420 and Raymond the folks were caught and carried.

With avalanche activity at this level the only reasonable choice is to stay the heck off of steep slopes that face the north half of the compass. If you watch the slope angles and aspects very carefully it is certainly possible to get around in the backcountry at this time but any errors and/or excessive boldness could be severely punished. Our luck may have been excellent this winter but trusting to luck isn’t the best way to survive in the mountains: sooner or later it always runs out. Careful route finding and safe travel skills are absolutly essential this winter.

Temperatures remained warm during the night and I have had reports this morning that the current snow flurries are quite wet. I’m not sure how this will affect today’s stability but a little extra caution might not be a bad idea.

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

The avalanche danger remains CONSIDERABLE on slopes facing northwest, north, northeast and east, above about 8,500’ and about 35 degrees or steeper; that’s about the steepness of a black diamond slope at a ski resort. Human triggered avalanches are probable in these areas. There is a MODERATE avalanche danger on southerly facing slopes, possibly rising to CONSIDERABLE with daytime warming. The danger is LOW danger on slopes less than 30 degrees steepness, although slides can be triggered from nearby low angled terrain.

Mountain Weather:

Several weak weather disturbances will cross northern Utah today and over the weekend. None of these are strong enough to put down more than a dusting of new snow but the mountains could end up getting a couple of inches. High temperatures today will be in the mid to upper thirties at 8,000 feet and near thirty at 10,000. Ridge top winds will be 10 to 20 mph from the west. It looks like high pressure will return for next week.

General Information:

For more details on recent avalanche activity call 364-1591.

Weather permitting Wasatch Powderbird Guides will fly today in American Fork or Cardiff and Silver Forks, 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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Saturday morning.

Thanks for calling!

________________________________________________________________________

National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.

For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings:

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