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.

“keeping you on top”

AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Monday, January 14, 2008  7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Monday, January 14, 2008 and it’s about 7:30 am. 

 

UDOT in Big Cottonwood Canyon will intermittently close the canyon from 12:30-2:30pm to sight in their avalauncher for their mid-canyon starting zones.

 

Current Conditions:

 

We just heard of a full burial of a snowmobiler in the Western Uintas yesterday.  Details are thin at this point, but initial reports indicate a deep slab avalanche, full burial, and companion rescue with transceivers.  Hopefully we’ll have more information on the Western Uinta site over the next day or so.

 

Low level stratus kept many wandering around in the fog yesterday, though those who persevered found excellent riding conditions and good stability.  It’ll be another opportunity today for that long-desired super-tour.  Skies are clear, temperatures are in the mid to upper teens, and the northeasterly winds are generally light.  You’ll find a thinly veiled breakable crust on the southerly aspects this morning and intermittent eggshells of rime blanketing localized windward slopes.  The shady slopes have excellent riding conditions, with the best perhaps just off the ridgelines and in the glades.

 

Avalanche Discussion:

The recent avalanches column will be pretty lean today here in the Wasatch.  Minor sluffing, a couple 4” drifts up high…… though a Humvee-sized cornice reportedly calved off at a party’s approach above West Monitor in upper Big Cottonwood Canyon.  Not surprisingly, the resultant thump on the slope produced no results.  A party in Broad’s Fork in mid-Big Cottonwood Canyon found a recent full depth glide avalanche.  Difficult to forecast, these dark horses of the avalanche world are full-depth pockets, sliding on a steep smooth bed surface, lubricated by melt-water, and often hastened toward climax through rapid warming events.  They are not uncommon in upper Broad’s Fork, upper Mill B South and Stairs Gulch in Big Cottonwood.

 

For today, wet avalanches will be one of the main concerns for those exiting the sunnier slopes in the afternoon.  Pinwheels, rollerballs, and damp push-alanches will indicate decreasing stability on the heated slopes.  The damp sluffs may entrain quite a bit of snow on the steepest, most sustained slopes.  Cornices will again become tender with today’s warming.  Give them wide berth, even 10’ or so from the edge.  Of course, in the most exposed terrain, isolated shallow soft slabs and sluffing can have disastrous consequences if you’re knocked off your feet or snowmobile above cliffbands or things of that nature.

 

For the future, we’ll look for any potential development of weaknesses surrounding the rain crust from the 5th at the mid-elevations, and rime crusts from Friday and yesterday.  Surface hoar development and weakening of the snow surfaces are processes to watch over the next day or so as well.

 

Bottom Line for the Ogden, Salt Lake, Park City and Provo area mountains:

Most terrain has a LOW avalanche danger, though the danger will rise to MODERATE with wet activity on the sun-exposed slopes.  Isolated pockets of MODERATE danger remain with our deep slab problem, exclusively found in steep, shallow rocky areas or areas with a thin snowpack.   

 

Mountain Weather:  Our full Mountain Weather Forecast, updated each day at Noon, can be found here.

We can expect clear skies, light northerly winds, and temps approaching 30 degrees at 10,000’ and the upper 30’s at 8000’.  On the down-stream side of a building ridge to our west, we’ll be under a cool northerly flow for the next week with occasional disturbances clipping northern Utah.  The first, a windy but mostly dry cold front, will affect northern Utah tomorrow in the early afternoon. 

Announcements
The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work.  To find out more about how you can support our efforts to continue providing the avalanche forecasting and education that you expect please visit our Friends page.

 

The Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out yesterday, but today they’ll have a ship in Lambs and the Bountiful Sessions, with another ship in American Fork.  For more information, call them at 801-742-2800, or go to their daily blog.

The free avalanche beacon parks are up and running at Solitude, Snowbird and Canyons.  They’re great places to practice by yourself or with friends.

 

If you want to get this avalanche advisory e-mailed to you daily click HERE.

 

UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be found by calling (801) 975-4838.

Our statewide tollfree line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).

If you’re getting out and see anything we should know about please let us know.  You can leave 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.

Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday morning.