A pockety MODERATE danger still exists for triggering a wind slab in the mid and upper elevation easterly facing slopes. Slope cuts and careful cornice stomping may give you an idea of how sensitive things are by revealing any cracking of the fresh drifts. Out of the wind affected terrain the avalanche danger is LOW.

Wow, Saturday was a great day to be in the mountains with pleasant temperatures and good snow. It was enough to arouse one of our observers where she described the conditions as “sexy” in an almost more than “G rated” backcountry observation. The winds during last week have done a number on many of the higher elevation slopes but lots of good soft snow can still be found especially in the mid elevation northerly aspects. Ridgetop temperatures cooled into the low teens to around 20 overnight. Westerly winds picked up since yesterday afternoon and gusted into the 20s and 30s along many ridges and into the 60s at the most exposed high elevation locations overnight. After a mild disturbance that moved through this morning the winds already show signs of decreasing.

Avalanche activity that was reported from Saturday was mostly old news about visible crowns and debris piles from the natural cycle earlier in the week. Another more recent avalanche was reported from Bountiful Peak with the timing and trigger unconfirmed. It was around 12 inches deep, 100 feet wide and ran around 500 feet vertical on a wind loaded easterly facing slope.

Deseret News link to avalanche dog training on Saturday

Looks like another fairly nice day in the mountains with mostly clear skies. Ridgetop temperatures will be in the low to mid 20s and northwest winds will be a bit gusty along the ridges this morning and decreasing later this afternoon. High pressure settles in for the week with the next chance for snow toward the weekend.

Wasatch Powderbird Guides were in Cascade and American Fork yesterday and plan to return to those places again today. Operations planning page is here.

Note: Backcountry.com published a nice article on sidecountry skiing.

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.