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,
February 20, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with
the
Current Conditions:
Yesterday was the tenth
day in a row with human triggered avalanches and my money is on today being the
eleventh. Temperatures cooled into the
single digits and low teens in many mountain locations and winds are less then
10 mph except at the more exposed locations where there are gusts into the
30s. A few more inches of snow fell
yesterday morning before the storm cleared mid day.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
Human triggered
avalanches continued on Monday. One was
remotely triggered from skiers on a ridge in Mill D North. It was around 75 feet wide, 2 feet deep and
ran around 500 feet vertical. It was on
a north facing aspect with a slope angle of around 35 degrees. The weak layer was very fragile faceted snow
along with surface hoar. (PHOTOS)
The second avalanche
was a solo skier near Cardiac bowl who triggered an avalanche and was caught,
carried and at least partially buried.
Landowners with permitted snowmobiles watched the incident and dug out
the skier who lost all of his gear. They
gave him a ride out. We’ll have more
details on this soon.
I don’t really care
that cracking and collapsing are not happening as much as a few days ago, just
the bad snowpack structure alone is enough to keep me of off steep north
through east facing slopes. Continued
avalanching is proof. Those of you who
don’t have much experience in backcountry travel should continue to avoid steep
slopes. Those with experience, keep this
in mind. The faceted snow that’s buried
deep in the pack is much weaker then we are used to. We also have buried surface hoar scattered
throughout the range which we are also not used to. Surface hoar is responsible for killing many
people in areas where it is more common such as in
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger remains CONSIDERABLE
on slopes over 35 degrees on north through east facing aspects. Avalanches on these aspects can be quite
large.
The danger is less on
other aspects and lower angle slopes but if you are getting onto steep slopes
you still need to evaluate the snow pack carefully.
Mountain Weather:
Today we’ll see partly
cloudy skies with temperatures rebounding into the mid 20s. Westerly winds will increase slightly into
the 10 to 15 mph range along the mid elevation ridges with stronger gusts in
the 30s and 40s at the more exposed locations.
Wednesday looks similar then winds shift more south and increase on Thursday
ahead of what looks like a pretty good snow storm for us.
Announcements:
The Banff
Mountain Film Festival will be held at Kingsbury Hall tonight and Wednesday. Tickets are $7.50 per show and available at
Kingsbury Hall, Art-Tix, the Salt Lake and Sandy REI stores, and the Outdoor
Recreation Program at the U of U. Shows
start at 7pm each night. (CLICK FOR DETAILS)
Yesterday, the Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out and today will be
in
Listen to the
advisory. Try our new streaming audio or
podcasts
UDOT highway avalanche
control work info can be found HERE
or by calling (801)
975-4838.
Our
statewide tollfree line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, 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 all the great
snowpack and avalanche observations we’ve been getting, so keep leaving us
messages 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 Tuesday morning, and
thanks for calling.