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
“keeping
you on top”
AVALANCHE ADVISORY
Tuesday,
January 16, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with
the
Our partners, the Friends of the UAC, are hosting the 4th Annual
Backcountry Awareness Week Fundraising Dinner on Friday, February 2, 2007. The
dinner will be at The Canyons and Olympic Gold Medal Winner Jim Shea will be
the keynote speaker. For tickets and information visit www.UtahAvalancheCenter.com
The beacon park is up and running at Solitude Ski Resort if you’re looking
for something to do until the next snow.
Current Conditions:
Reports of good riding
conditions are few and far between.
While you may find sheltered areas where the few inches of snow we received
last week are on top of soft snow, most places have a variety of wind, rime and
sun crusts below the most recent snow.
The moderate winds speeds from yesterday blew the few inches of light
density snow around at the higher elevations making things even more
variable. Did I mention that we’re also
experiencing an overall lean snowpack for this time of the season? (Jan
2006, Jan
2007, Click HERE to
understand the charts) Alta had recorded
almost 150 inches more snow last year at this same time and many snow stations
are at around 60 to 70% of normal. (Snotel
Stations: mouse over the station on
the map and look at the %Avg at the right of the
map) Well, I guess this means while we
currently have bad snow at least there’s not that much of it. Also this will sharpen up your bush, shrub
and alder route finding techniques which leads me into preferred clothing. Gortex is out, denim
is in. It’s much more abrasion
resistant. It also provides a little
friction in case you take a skidder on a hard crust. Sorry for the mini rant, on a high note temperatures
are up above 10 degrees at the upper elevations and winds are generally less
then 10 mph from the north along the ridges.
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
Let’s get back on
track and look at the snow a bit. The variable
snow depths consist of layers of week snow with a variety of crusts throughout the
pack which makes for a very complex pattern.
But, we can break this down to a simple form. The pattern for the season has been small
storms which produce a layer of snow that then sits on the surface and becomes
weak before the next small storm comes in and does the same thing. These weak layers continue to stack up and we’ve
never really overloaded them but they haven’t gained much strength in many
areas either. That’s the situation right
now, the surface is becoming weak and there are some nice sliding surfaces
below it but without any significant storms in the future, who cares? Oops, I’m slipping off into a tangent again.
For today the main
concern will be fresh shallow wind drifts in the higher elevations. These won’t pose a great threat but be aware
they may crack out and cause problems if you’re in exposed terrain.
Bottom Line for the
Today the avalanche
danger is generally LOW with a localized MODERATE danger of shallow new wind drifts in the higher
terrain.
Mountain Weather:
Sunny skies will
prevail with 8000’ temps reaching into the low 20s and the 10,000’ temps
heading into the teens. Surface winds
will remain light and variable. The next
storm again splits with the closed low drifting south over
Announcements:
Yesterday, the Wasatch Powderbird Guides did not fly due to winds and
today they’ll be in Mineral,
Listen to the
advisory. Try our new streaming audio or
podcasts
Our new,
state wide tollfree hotline is 1-888-999-4019.
(For early morning detailed avalanche activity report hit option 8)
For a list of avalanche
classes, click HERE
For our classic text advisory click HERE.
To sign up for automated e-mails of our graphical advisory click HERE
We appreciate any snowpack and avalanche
observations you have, so please leave us a message at (801) 524-5304 or
1-800-662-4140, or email us at [email protected].
(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 on Wednesday morning, and
thanks for calling.