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.

The NEW AND IMPROVED Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center Home page is: http://www.utahavalanchecenter.com

To receive automated e-mails of this advisory click HERE.

Avalanche advisory

Thursday, March 10, 2005
Good morning, this is Evelyn Lees with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Thursday March 10, 2005, and its 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:
Under mostly clear skies, northern Utah continues to enjoy spring like conditions. In the Salt Lake and Park City mountains, temperatures are generally in the upper 20’s and low 30’s this morning. The Ogden and the mid and low elevation Provo area mountains are warmer, in the upper 30’s to low 40’s. The persistent northwesterly winds continue to blow in the 15 to 25 mph range, with gusts generally in the 20’s and 30’s. More adventuresome backcountry travelers are finding good turning and riding conditions away from the bustling crowds, with recrystalized powder on sheltered shady slopes and corn on sunny slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:
Once again, the main avalanche problem today will be wet sluffs and slabs, with the activity more widespread in the warmer Ogden and Provo area mountains. Wet loose sluffs happen when the surface snow gets damp and sloppy. They are occurring on steep sunny slopes and on the shadier slopes at the mid and low elevations. Yesterday afternoon, a skier triggered a wet “push-a-lanche” in the Crows Feet, a northwest facing slope at 9400’. It ran the full 2000’ vertical, with the cement like debris piling up 5’ deep. Wet slabs and “corn slabs” are trickier – the snow surface is hard and seems stable, but the slab fails on a weak layer of damp snow beneath. While most slopes will have a surface refreeze this morning, it may be shallow and short lived. So when the snow gets wet and sloppy or before the supportable crust weakens, it’s time to move to a cooler slope or go complete your Wasatch biathlon with another sport such as climbing or biking.

The persistent, northwesterly winds have created some shallow wind drifts, mostly in upper elevation terrain. Yesterday, a skier did trigger a pushy shallow wind slab on a northwesterly facing slope at 11,000’ that was about 100’ wide, and was able to ski off it.

Bottom Line (Salt Lake and Park City mountains):
The avalanche danger is generally LOW this morning, and will rise to MODERATE with daytime heating on slopes steeper then about 35 degrees. Both wet loose sluffs and wet slab avalanches are possible. Also avoid any steep slope with recent or old wind drifts.
Bottom Line (Ogden and Provo mountains): The avalanche danger is MODERATE and will rise to CONSIDERABLE with daytime heating on and below steep, sunny slopes, especially at the mid and lower elevations. Natural wet sluffs and slabs are possible and human triggered slides probable. 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.)
A weak trough of low pressure will push through northern Utah today, bringing a few clouds, cooler temperatures, but no snow. The northerly winds will remain in the 15 to 25 mph range, with strong gusts across the higher ridges. Temperatures will warm into to the mid 40’s at 8,000’ today and remain near 30 at 10,000’. Warm and sunny Friday with a stronger dry cold front moving across the area Saturday night through Sunday night, dropping temperatures into the teens.

Yesterday, Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in the Cascade Ridge area. Today they will operate in the Bountiful Sessions or American Fork and the Cascade Ridge area.

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 Friday morning.

Thanks for calling.