Wasatc h
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/
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Avalanche advisory
Saturday,
December 25, 2004
Good morning, this is Santa
Claus Tremper with the
Registration for
the Friends of the
Free Beacon Rescue
Training Centers are now open at Snowbird and the Canyons. For more information go to
wasatchbackcountryrescue.org.
Current Conditions:
It’s Christmas day and all
through the land,
As temperatures rise and
faces are tanned,
The cold wind and the snow
from the past couple days,
Makes blizzards in
Our temperatures are warm,
the skies are quite clear,
Should I
head for the mountains, you betcha my dear.
There’s a few skinny inches of very light snow,
But what it’s lying on top
of, I think you should know,
Is a wide variety of sugar
and crust,
That bounce your around and
bruise your nice butt.
But there’s still soft snow
on some north facing slopes,
Go high or go low and you’re
nothing but dopes,
Stay at mid elevations on
wind sheltered places,
And you’ll hoot up a storm
with smiles on your faces.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yes, it’s Christmas day and
all through the range,
No avalanches are stirring,
which doesn’t seem strange,
It’s been two weeks now since
the big snow storm,
When
avalanche warnings were the daily norm.
These days the snow is
relaxed and quite lazy,
I’ll tell you straight out,
lest you think I’m crazy,
Most everywhere you go, the
danger is LOW,
But there’s one other thing I
think you should know,
The recent north winds have
been blowing some snow,
Onto south facing slopes,
those wind slabs could go!
So if you see a steep slope
with a recent wind drift,
Don’t jump on it buddy, or
you just might get biffed.
They’re mostly on ridges at
high elevation,
They’re creamy and thick and
full of temptation,
They’re smooth and rounded
and sometimes sound hollow,
If you’re friend heads on out
there, dontcha go follow,
Stay in a safe place so you
can dig em right out,
Don’t lecture or yell,
they’ll just go and pout,
Avalanches are good teachers,
as long as you listen,
But first you have to survive
the lesson.
Mountain Weather:
All through the weekend,
it’ll be much mo-better,
Sunny and warm is a great
kind of weather.
Up in the fourties
is the daytime high,
It’s better than cold, at
least with this guy,
But as new snow gets mushy
and starts to go sluff,
It could knock you down and
other bad stuff.
Enjoy the nice weather while
you still can,
Cause next week is stormy, says the old weather man.
With crusts on the south
slopes and sugar on north,
There’ll be soft slabs, hard
slabs and sluffs and so forth.
In the mean time, gather up
your new Christmas toys,
Go out and enjoy, all you
girls and you boys.
Yesterday Wasatch Powderbird
Guides flew in
We do an early morning update
around 6am each day on the 364-1591 line.
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.
Drew Hardesty will update this advisory by 7:30 on
Sunday morning.
Thanks for calling
________________________________________________________________________
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: