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

AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Sunday, January 01, 2006 7:30am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Sunday, January 01, 2006, and it’s about 7:30 am.

Check out our new graphical advisory format. You can update your bookmarks to this link:
http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/newadvisory/advisory.php

I HAVE ISSUED A SPECIAL AVALANCHE STATEMENT FOR THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN UTAH. HEAVY SNOWFALL AND WINDS HAVE ELEVATED THE AVALANCHE DANGER TO HIGH IN MANY AREAS. THOSE WITHOUT EXCELLENT AVALANCHE SKILLS SHOULD AVOID STEEP SLOPES OR AVALANCHE RUNOUT ZONES.

Current Conditions:

Heavy snowfall continues into this morning with overnight totals adding up to another 12-16” in the most of the ranges of northern Utah. Storm totals are now adding up to 2-3.5 feet in the high elevations. Yesterday’s southerly winds averaged 25-45mph with gusts into the 60’s before the winds shifted to the west and northwest with the passing of the cold front overnight. Since midnight, the west-northwesterly winds have been averaging 20-30mph, gusting into the 50’s. For the past 6 hours, the most exposed ridgelines have been suffering hourly wind speeds in 50’s with 70mph gusts.

Avalanche Conditions:

One man remains missing in an avalanche accident high on Timpanogos from yesterday afternoon. Check back for a preliminary report later today, but what we know now is that two snowshoers were nearing Emerald Lake above 10,000’ when they were caught in a hard slab avalanche. One man stayed above the debris while his partner was completely buried. Rescue efforts were hampered due to the weather and avalanche conditions and they may try to resume operations today.

Elsewhere across the range, backcountry travelers and ski patrol personnel triggered both stubborn and sensitive new wind drifts averaging 1-2’ deep and up to 300’ wide. Two skiers were caught and carried in upper Big Cottonwood canyon in separate slides, while other travelers reported close calls with unintentionally triggered avalanches. These were on a variety of aspects, from west to north to southeast at the mid and upper elevations, and not all in the standard starting zones. Two avalanches pulled into older faceted snow from November and December. One party triggered a slide into these older weak layers on the west face of Gobbler’s Knob 2’ deep by 300’ wide while another team in Provo dropped a cornice pulling out a wind slab, which subsequently stepped 3’ down into older faceted snow from early December. Check here for more details by mid-morning.

The unbelievable water weight of 3-5” in the past few days combined with the strong southerly and now northwesterly will continue to wreak havoc with avalanches in the mountains of northern Utah. Large natural and human triggered avalanches may be expected today. Areas with a locally shallow snowpack will be more prone to stepping down into older, weaker layers. Those without good avalanche or route finding skills should avoid being on or underneath steep slopes.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is HIGH on steep mid and upper elevation wind-drifted slopes. Non wind-drifted areas at the mid elevations will have a CONSIDERABLE danger.

Mountain Weather:

Snow showers will taper off this morning and skies will become partly cloudy by afternoon. The northwest winds will remain moderate to strong this morning before tapering off midday as they back westerly and then to the southwest ahead of the next storm, set for tomorrow. 10,000’ temps will be in the upper teens before warming to the low twenties this afternoon.

Regional Snow Profile (this profile can also be found daily off our home page under avalanche products)

Click here for Seasonal Weather History Charts.

Yesterday, Wasatch Powderbird Guides did not fly and will be grounded again today. For more info, call 742-2800.

Please report any backcountry snow and avalanche conditions you observe. Call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, email [email protected] or fax 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.

To have this advisory automatically e-mailed to you each day, click HERE. (You must re-sign up this season even if you were on the list last season.)

UDOT also has a highway avalanche control work hotline for Little Cottonwood road, which is updated as needed. 801-975-4838.

I will update this advisory by 7:30 Monday morning. Thanks for calling.