Salt Lake Avalanche Advisory

Forecaster: Bruce Tremper

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Don't miss Snowbird's Avalanche Rescue Awareness Day tomorrow on Saturday from 11 till 2 at Entry 4. You can see the top avalanche rescue dogs in the country, get training and practice with your beacons, learn shoveling techniques and helicopter search demonstrations.

BOTTOM LINE

Danger by aspect and elevation on slopes approaching 35° or steeper.
(click HERE for tomorrow's danger rating)


Danger Rose Tutorial

There is a MODERATE danger of lingering wind slabs on any slope approaching 35 degrees or steeper with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. There is also a MODERATE danger of wet sluffs on steep, southerly facing slopes as they warm in the sun and warmer temperatures.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

There’s still some delightful powder on wind and sun sheltered slopes, which you will find mostly on east facing slopes below about 9,000’. Above tree line and in open areas, we still have lurch-and-jerk, old, wind slabs that can send you over the handlebars in a bothersome manner. The recommendation de jour is to avoid upper elevation wind-damaged slopes and stick to lower elevation, wind-sheltered slopes where the powder is very good. It’s clear with warming temperatures this morning. Ridge top winds at upper elevations were still blowing yesterday and last night, but have diminished to 10 mph from the northwest with the exception of the highest peaks where they are blowing harder. Ridge top temperatures have risen up to around 20 degrees and will rise to near freezing today. (Photos from Timpanogos) Note: Backcountry.com published a nice article on slackcountry skiing.

RECENT ACTIVITY

Yesterday, a split boarder triggered a wind slab and took a ride in an avalanche on the southeast side of Reynolds Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was 2-3 feet deep, over 100 feet wide and it ran about 1000 vertical feet. He said he put a slope cut in too high and triggered it lower on the slope. Luckily, he was able to eventually get out to the side and is unharmed. Ski resorts continued to get localized, stubborn, wind slabs with explosives in upper elevation, above-tree-line terrain.

THREAT #1
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 24 hours.

Today, the main concern remains the lingering, stubborn, stiff, wind slabs left over from the very strong northwesterly winds that began Tuesday night and continued through last night. As always, you need to be suspicious of steep slopes with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. These are stiff and stubborn enough now that they tend to break above you. Although time and warmer temperatures have settled most of them out, you can still trigger some of these nasty booby traps in localized areas. The winds were very elevation dependant with very strong winds above 9,500’ and much calmer the lower you went. So you’ll find them mostly at upper elevation, above-tree-line terrain, but it was quite hit-or-miss with the wind also got into some lower elevation terrain. (Later this morning, I will post a You Tube video of my field work yesterday.)

THREAT #2
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 8 hours.

With sun, light winds and warming temperatures today, we are likely to get wet sluffs on steep, southerly-facing slopes, especially at lower elevations. As always, get off of and out from underneath steep slopes when they are getting wet and soggy, especially in mid day and afternoon.

MOUNTAIN WEATHER

Clear and warm. And we can probably copy-and-paste this forecast for the rest of the week. Ridge top temperatures will creep up to just below freezing today with light ridge top winds from the northwest. Our next chance for snow looks like a week from today.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Wasatch Powderbird Guides were in American Fork yesterday. Today, they will have one ship in Mineral, Silver, Days and Cardiff, with another ship in AF, Lambs and the Session Mountains. Operations planning page is here.

The last of the Beaver Mountain Discount tickets have been reduced to $35, with all proceeds going to the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center. Click HERE for details.

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center is hosting a Level 2 avalanche class in February which is now open for registration by going to the Black Diamond retail store. More information is HERE.

Tickets are now available for the annual Backcountry Awareness Dinner on February 13th, with registration through the Snowbird Renaissance Center.

Beacon training parks are up and running! There is one at Snowbasin, one on the Park City side at the top of Canyon’s gondola, one in Little Cottonwood near the Snowbird parking structure on the bypass road, and in Big Cottonwood a training park is at the west end of Solitude's lower parking lot.

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

For a text only version, the link is on the left side bar, near the top.

UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be found by calling (801) 975-4838. Our statewide toll free line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).

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.

Your snow and avalanche observations help everyone in the backcountry community. Please let us know what you're seeing by leaving a message at (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at uac@utahavalanchecenter.org. (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. This advisory does not apply to ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally conducted.

Evelyn will update this advisory by 7:30 tomorrow morning.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done.  This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

This advisory provided by the USDA Forest Service, in partnership with:

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, Utah Division of Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Unified Fire Authority and the friends of the La Sal Avalanche Center. See our Sponsors Page for a complete list.