Wasatch Cache National Forest
In partnership with: Utah State Parks and Recreation, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and Salt Lake County.

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Avalanche advisory

Monday, March 07, 2005
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Monday March 7, 2005, and its 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:
Skies are clear and temperatures are in the low to upper twenties, a good 5 degrees or so warmer than this time yesterday. The northwest winds picked up a bit and increased again overnight and are blowing 25-30mph gusting into the mid-40’s along the upper ridgelines.

Avalanche Conditions:
If you’re in the higher country today, you can expect to see some shallow new wind drifts formed mostly along the high lee southerly aspects. A bit of terrain channeling may load some off aspects, so check out the extent of the drifting on today’s super-tour. Otherwise, as long as you’re not picnicking under the yawning glide cracks in Cardiff, Mill B, Stairs or Broads, riding the steep southerly lines after they’ve turned to glop, or diving into the steep exposed lines without regard for a shallow new wind drift, you’ve probably got the green light.

Bottom Line (Salt Lake, Park City, Provo, and Ogden mountains):
The avalanche danger is MODERATE on recently drifted steep slopes in the upper elevations. Elsewhere, the danger is generally LOW. The avalanche danger will rise to MODERATE on the steep sun exposed slopes in the heat of the afternoon. For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings go to: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm

Mountain Weather: (You can find the afternoon Weather Update here.)
High pressure continues to reign and we’ll have mostly sunny skies with a few high thin clouds aloft. 8000’ highs will be in the low 40’s with 10,000’ temps in the upper twenties. Winds will average 25-35mph from the northwest along the high ridgelines. The week’s weather looks uneventful with a weak system passing to the northeast of us tonight and again on Thursday. Temperatures warm significantly by Saturday with a strong mostly dry cold front expected Saturday night.

Yesterday, Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in the Sessions and Cascade. Today they will be in the Sessions, American Fork and Cascade. As a friendly reminder, snowmobiles are prohibited from entering into the protected watershed of White Pine in LCC.

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.

UDOT COTTONWOOD CANYONS HOTLINE FOR ROAD CLOSURE AND AVALANCHE CONTROL INFORMATION: 975-4838. We try to update our early morning avalanche activity report by around 5:30 am at 364-1591.

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.

Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday morning.

Thanks for calling.