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

Friday, April 07, 2006  7:30 am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Friday, April 07, 2006, and it’s about 7:30 am. 

 

Current Conditions:

I’m going to keep it simple today and stick to the facts.  An avalanche warning remains in effect for the mountains of northern Utah through 6 pm today.  Heavy snowfall along with strong winds created unstable conditions in the backcountry.  Warming temperatures today will add to the unstable conditions.  People without excellent route finding and avalanche assessment skills are urged to stay out of the backcountry today.

 

UDOT will be conducting avalanche control work in Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons this morning.

 

Wind speeds have dropped off and the storm is exiting the area.  Skies are cloudy and temperatures along the ridges are in the low 20s and in the upper 20s at 8,000’.

 

Recent Avalanche Activity & Snowpack Discussion:

The mountains of northern Utah received over 2 feet of medium density snow and over 3 inches of water weight in many high elevation locations.  Even areas that usually shut off on a northwest flow like Mt Ogden and Mt Timpanogus continued to get hammered on during the day on Thursday.  Winds drifted snow and produced numerous sensitive layers within the new snow.  Everyone that was in the backcountry reported widespread cracking at all elevations.  All my partner and I had to do was look at a steep wind loaded slope to make it avalanche.  We triggered an avalanche that broke out 150 to 200 feet wide from a distance of over 200 feet away.  It ran over 1000 feet vertical distance.  Skiers in Dutch’s Draw released a slide up to 20 inches deep from a ski cut.  No one was caught.  A natural avalanche that hit the Little Cottonwood canyon highway pushed a vehicle off of the road.  Everyone involved is OK.  You should not feel at ease around any steep slopes today and big time concentration needs to be applied to all decision making.

 

The wind slabs that formed yesterday will still be a concern today.  While they won’t be as “hair trigger” as yesterday, they do have the potential to be very dangerous.  With two feet of new snow from yesterday, drifts could be over four feet deep or more in places.  This is certainly nothing you want to screw around with.  Different from last weekend’s storm, many of these slabs may be past the point of being manageable with slope cuts.

 

Warming temperatures today have the potential to dramatically weaken the newest snow.  This large amount of snow will be sensitive to warming.  As the day progresses stay out from under any avalanche paths which means steep slopes above you.  If avalanches start releasing due to daytime heating they have the potential to be large and destructive. 

 

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger starts out CONSIDERABLE today and may rise to HIGH if temperatures do warm significantly.  While the frequency of avalanching may not be that great, both avalanching in fresh wind drifts and avalanches caused by daytime heating have the potential to be huge.  Many of the out of bounds areas adjacent to the ski resorts have some of the most suspect avalanche terrain and conditions.  Think twice before leaving the ski area today.

 

Mountain Weather:

The air mass warms substantially today.  Cloud cover will be the wild card with a gradual clearing expected.  8,000 foot temperatures will rise into the 40s with 10,000 temperatures into the 30s and possibly warmer with clearing skies.  Winds will be light from the northwest. 

 

Any snow safety workers with visions of an afternoon barbeque at the upper patrol shacks may want to hold off on that thought for a while as storms are still forecast to affect the area through next week with a small one starting Saturday morning.

 

Announcements:
Early birds and snow geeks can catch our 6AM report at 364-1591.

Click here to check out our new online avalanche encyclopedia.

Click HERE for a text only version of the avalanche advisory.

To have this advisory automatically e-mailed to you each day, click HERE.

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

The Wasatch Powderbird Guides did not fly yesterday and I’ve received no information from them today but I’d expect them to be performing bombing missions for UDOT and my guess would be they’ll go for Cardiff, Days, Silver, etc.  For more info, call 742-2800.
  
Special announcement:

The Wasatch-Cache National Forest is authorizing Wasatch Powderbird Guides to operate within established golden eagle mitigation buffers to aid research biologists collecting data to evaluate the effects of heli-skiing operations on nesting golden eagles in the Tri Canyon Area. This authorization is under permit from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and will be in effect through 30 April 2006.  For further information please contract Steve Scheid at the Salt Lake Ranger District at 801-733-2689.

Please report any backcountry snow and avalanche conditions.  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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 Saturday morning.  Thanks for calling.