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Avalanche advisory
Friday, February 06, 2004, 7:30 am
Good
morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the
The Banff Film Festival, a benefit for the Friends
of the
The Friends of the
Current
Conditions:
The moist northwest flow over the past few
days has brought some impressive storm totals in the 2-2.5’ range in Big and
Little Cottonwood, with a foot in the outlying areas south of I-80. Turning
and riding conditions are excellent and one guy in Little Cottonwood who’ll
forget more about avalanches than I’ll ever learn told me it was the best skiing
in the past couple of years. Under clear
skies, temperatures have plummeted into the single digits at both 8 and 10,000’.
The winds have remained light out of the
northwest. The sun was able to poke
through the instability showers yesterday, so you’ll find a slight crust on the
south and southwest aspects buried a few inches down.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday, three avalanches were triggered that
broke into old snow, with the end result of skiers taking rides into trees and
one being buried up to his neck. Fortunately, no one was greatly injured in the
events. All of the slides were reported
to be mid and upper elevation northerly slopes 1-3’
deep and 50-200’ wide, running on the buried facets formed on the surface of
the snow during the mid January high pressure.
The first slide was a hard slab 1-3’ deep and 50’
wide, triggered by explosives in a closed area in the
So, it may be that these problems for now will be confined to the mid elevation northwest through southeast facing slopes that have seen a foot or more snow in the past few days. Remember that hard slabs may break above you while you’re already committed to the slope and wrap around to adjacent lower angled slopes. Sticking to moderate slopes and traveling one at a time should be the plan for today. Lastly, sluffing in the low density snow can still be expected on the steep northerly facing aspects as well as a rising danger of wet activity on the sunny slopes by about midday.
Bottom
Line for the Wasatch Range, including the
The avalanche danger is moderate on northwest through southeast facing slopes at the mid elevations. The danger of both wet and dry sluffs will rise to MODERATE.
Bottom
Line for the
In these areas the received less snow, the danger is LOW.
Mountain Weather:
It’ll be mostly sunny today with light winds out of the northwest. 8000’ temps will be near 30 with 10000’ temps in the teens. We’ll see increasing clouds tonight and backing winds ahead of a strong cold front expected by tomorrow afternoon that looks like it could dump 12-18” by late Sunday. A moist unstable north-northwest flow could keep things snowy into early next week.
For specific digital forecasts for the
General Information:
The
Wasatch Powderbird Guides did not fly yesterday, but today will be in
If you are getting into the backcountry, please give us a call and let us know what you’re seeing, especially if you trigger an avalanche. You can leave a message at 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140. Or you can e-mail an observation to uac@avalanche .org, 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.
Thanks for calling.
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