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Avalanche advisory
Sunday, February 27,
2005
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the
Current Conditions:
Under clear skies, mountain temperatures are in the teens with cooler air
pooling in the valley bottoms and mountain drainages. Winds remain less than 15mph from the west
northwest. Snow surface conditions range
from mostly supportable quasi-corn on the steep southerly aspects to soft
recrystallized snow and surface hoar on the north side of the compass. Sluffing in the weakening surface snow may be
something to consider if you’re jumping into the steeper lines.
Avalanche Conditions:
While it’s true that some of the older wind slabs are a bit slow to settle out
and the mid-pack weaknesses haven’t gone fully dormant, my sense is that
yesterday’s activity is less an indicator of a change in stability than the
fact that more folks are swarming into every nook and cranny of the
Wasatch. There were three more human
triggered slides yesterday, all on 38-40 degree northeast and east facing
slopes at about 10,000’. A ski cut along
the Mineral/Mill B ridgeline pulled out a 8-10” by 50’ soft slab, a cornice
drop pulled out a 1’x20’ wide soft slab onto faceted
snow in the Raymond
chutes above Mill A, and a skier launching over a cornice or old fracture
line unintentionally triggered a slide
that possibly went into old snow 30” by 40’ wide. This last slide was in No Name adjacent to
Scotty’s Bowl in LCC likely was a pocket repeater that ran on the old bed
surface from the January cycle.
Moderate is a dangerous place
to be. Often the signs of instability
are not present, and you can ride numerous slopes before finding the booby-trap. The
lingering new snow instabilities are not widespread, but are more likely to be
found on steeper north through east facing slopes at the mid and upper
elevations. The problems with faceted
snow are in similar areas, and may be more sensitive in areas that pulled out
in the January
cycle.
Bottom Line (
The avalanche danger is MODERATE on slopes
steeper than about 35 degrees, especially any slope with deposits of wind
drifted snow. The danger of wet activity
on the sun-exposed slopes will rise to MODERATE with today’s
heating.
(http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm
for an explanation of avalanche danger ratings.)
Mountain Weather: (You can find the afternoon
Weather Update here.)
It’ll be another beautiful day in the hills with light northwesterly winds and
temperatures in the mid-twenties along the ridgelines and in the mid-thirties
at the mid-elevations. For the extended
forecast, we will have a weak weather disturbance for Monday, but otherwise the
weather should stay pretty benign for the next week.
Yesterday, Wasatch
Powderbird Guides flew in
If you have any snow or
avalanche observations, call and leave a message at 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140,
or e-mailing us at [email protected]. Fax is 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.
I will update this advisory by
7:30 on Monday morning.
Thanks for calling.
For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings:
http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm