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
Monday,
March 05, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
Current Conditions:
We have high thin
clouds blanketing the mountains and light west to southwesterly winds. Overnight lows remained balmy with
temperatures rarely below 25 degrees
above 9000’. Highs yesterday reached
into the upper thirties even at 11,000’ and all but high north will have
something of a zipper to full blown crust this morning.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
The steep sun-exposed
slopes went through an expansive, though not necessarily long running wet loose
‘cycle’ yesterday and you’ll definitely need to keep tabs on the wet activity today,
particularly with the continued warm temps and thin clouds. Steep sunny exits could pose some issues
today.
On the other side of the
compass, large explosive triggered slides continue in the ski areas and in the
backcountry, with the most notable a reported 12’ monster to the ground in
upper Little Cottonwood at 10,500’ to 11,000’.
It’s similar to the monsters already crow-barred out earlier in the week
by control teams at Snowbasin.
Disconcerting to the backcountry traveler through extrapolation is that
these were the result of single or double shots in areas that had previous hammering. We’re not done. It’s possible that a sizeable hard slab naturalled in upper Soldier
Fork 2.5-3’ deep and 100’ wide yesterday, though I’m currently on the phone
with parties who’ve been near the crime scene to nail down a general time
frame. More later.
It’s becoming more the
exception and not the rule, but collapsing of the weak underlying structure
caught a couple independent parties attention in high terrain of
Bottom Line for the
We’ll have pockets of CONSIDERABLE
danger on slopes approaching 35 degrees and steeper on the west through north
through southeast aspects. The danger of
wet avalanche activity will again rise to CONSIDERABLE on all steep sun-exposed slopes,
and may be more pronounced in the
Mountain Weather:
High thin clouds will
blanket the mountains for much of the day with generally light southwesterly
winds. 8000’ and 10,000’ highs will
reach into the mid 40’s and mid-30’s today. A weak disturbance moves through tomorrow
with gradually cooling temps and a decent cold front for late Thursday.
Announcements:
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in the Bountiful Sessions and American
Fork, and will use a previous trade-out to fly in Silver,
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.
Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday morning, and
thanks for calling.