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Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Public Safety Division of
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Avalanche ADVISORY
Saturday, December 11,
2004 7:30 Am
Good
morning, this is Bruce Tremper with the
We have allowed the Avalanche Warning to expire but conditions
remain very dangerous.
Avalanche Conditions:
Unfortunately,
an avalanche fatality occurred late yesterday afternoon just south of
It
was a wild day yesterday. The avalanche
warning and a HIGH danger lived up to its
billing. As forecast, several more large,
natural avalanches popped out as rapid warming in the afternoon continued to push
an already-cranky snowpack past its breaking point. On west facing Patsy Marly, a backcountry
area just east of Alta Ski Area (and just on the other side of the hill from
the fatality) several large, natural avalanches fractured out in the afternoon. Also, there was a disconcerting, large
natural on an east-facing, unskied, but closed, terrain at mid Little
Cottonwood Canyon. Avalanche control by
the resorts continued to produce large, scary avalanches, especially in
uncompacted, unskied terrain.
Yesterday
was the first clear day after the storm, which allowed us to get a first
glimpse at the carnage in the backcountry. I will update the avalanche list
and photos page
later in the morning. Nearly all of
these avalanches were deep, wide monsters where even the small ones would ruin
your day. Most were breaking 2-3 feet
deep and up to several hundred feet wide.
The storm added huge amounts of water weight, which created a very stiff,
heavy slab, which is sliding on a very weak layer of faceted snow and surface
hoar that formed during the clear weather in November. It’s the avalanche equivalent of slamming a
concrete block down on top of a pile of tortilla chips.
Although
the avalanche activity during the storm was quite widespread, there are still a
disconcerting number of slopes which did not slide and they are still hanging in
the balance just waiting for a trigger.
In addition, temperatures are 10 degrees warmer this morning than
yesterday morning with ridge top temperatures between 35 and 40 this morning,
which should continue to make the snowpack cranky. Especially avoid steep north through east
facing slopes, even at mid and lower elevations where the weak faceted snow was
weakest before it got buried. I wish I
could continue to call it a HIGH danger today,
but it doesn’t quite fit the definition of HIGH,
so I won’t call it HIGH. It just barely on the CONSIDERABLE side of HIGH. Instead, it’s a very HIGH-pucker-factor
CONSIDERABLE. Get the point? This means that human triggered avalanches are probable and natural
avalanches are still possible. The bottom
line today is that no way, no how should anyone jump into steep terrain. Just give it a rest this weekend. The surface snow is dense, supportable Styrofoam
and you can have plenty of fun on slopes less than 30 degrees. If you want something steeper, go to the
resorts. If you want LOW danger terrain today in the backcountry stay off
of and out from underneath any slope steeper than 30 degrees. Finally, today’s extremely warm temperatures will
cause continued wet sluffing, rollerballs and occasional wet slabs at lower
elevations and on sun exposed slopes.
Mountain Weather:
It
should be a real cooker in the mountains today with ridge top temperatures
around 40 and 8,000’ temperatures just under 50 degrees. In addition, we will have some scattered high
clouds, which may cause some green housing and very soggy snow at lower
elevations. Ridge top winds will be
around 20 mph from the west and southwest.
We will have a similar, but somewhat cooler, day on Sunday with a weak
brush-by on Monday and a chance of some more snow by about mid week.
If
you are getting out, drop us a line or an email with any reports or
observations from the backcountry. You
can leave us a message at 524-5304 or 1 800-662-4140. Email us at [email protected],
or send a fax to 524-6301.
The
information in this advisory is from the US Forest Service, which is solely
responsible for its content. This
advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always
occur.
Drew
Hardesty will update this advisory by 7:30 Sunday morning, and thanks for
calling.
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