Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Salt Lake Area Mountains Issued by Drew Hardesty for Tuesday - December 29, 2015 - 6:46am
bottom line

A MODERATE danger exists in the backcountry. Moderate can be defined as "small avalanches in specific areas; or large avalanches in isolated areas". The danger is most pronounced on north to east facing steep, thin, rocky terrain - and - as per their character - deep slabs may be triggered from a distance or below. We're in a Low-probability/High-consequence regime that has contributed to more than a couple accidents over the years.

Note that the danger is more pronounced in the Western Uintas and the Wasatch Plateau. Check the forecasts in these areas for more info.




special announcement

Join us on Wednesday, Jan 6 at 7 pm for a showing of the award winning film Meru at Brewvies to benefit the Utah Avalanche Center. For details and advance purchase discount tickets, go here.

If you're heading to the resorts, support the UAC and get your lift tickets here - Details here

current conditions

Light snow continues to fall this morning with mountain temperatures in the single digits. There's hardly a whisper of wind. "Storm" totals are pushing an inch or two and we may double that over the next couple days. Sun and wind have had their way with the southerly aspects and open, alpine terrain the last couple days, but excellent conditions can still be found in the mid elevation northerly aspects at and below treeline. Settled and strengthening storm snow of 1.5-2.5' feet have pushed total depths across the range to 4-5'+ with decent low elevation coverage to boot.

recent activity

No avalanches or immediate signs of instability noted in the backcountry yesterday. Along the south end of the Park City ridgeline, however, explosive control work at one of the resorts pried out a 3-4' deep and 150' wide hard slab on a very steep and rocky slope on a north-northeast aspect at 9100'.

Let's take a look back: Much of the backcountry fell apart on the 23rd, with a couple naturals pulling out on the 24th, possibly the 25th. Since then - in the Wasatch Range anyway - a ski party remotely triggered a 4-5' deep slab along the upper reaches of the Big Cottonwood/Little Cottonwood headwaters at Rocky Point on the 26th. Aspects and elevations of these avalanches (averaging 3-4' deep) have predominantly been north to east facing above 9500' with some notable outliers on south and west aspects.

Avalanche Problem 1
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

These are the days that avalanche forecasters earn their keep. Most people imagine that we're out there everyday sampling the powder skiing in this part of the range, riding the powder on our sleds in the next part of the range. The reality, however, is seen below.

It may be the worst that we're still wearing leather telemark boots and mid-90s skinny telemark skis with Riva bindings.

In all seriousness, we've seen a gradual trend toward stability over the past week and avalanches have become increasingly difficult to trigger. Collapsing and cracking are becoming the exception now and not the rule. Having said that, let me relay a quick story. We had a similar snowpack structure a number of years ago and I was teaching an avalanche class along the far southern end of the Park City ridgeline. The students dug a large snowpit to the ground and found poor structure but were unable to prod or provoke the slab into failure. As we were all putting our skis back on, we collapsed the slope and triggered the adjacent slope to the ground. It was the only avalanche reported in days throughout the range.

For more information and travel advice on Deep Slab, click the 'i' next to the Deep Slab icon.

With Deep Slab instability, it's quite common to Drift into Failure.

Avalanche Problem 2
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

Remember - If you avoid avalanche terrain, you can avoid avalanches. If you don't know how to identify avalanche terrain consider taking an avalanche class. Click here for a list of Utah Avalanche Center classes and here for classes offered by other providers. Safe and stellar 5-star powder can be found on slopes less steep than 30 degrees with nothing steeper above.

weather

We'll have off-and-on snow showers today with frigid temps and light wind. Expect highs to be in the low teens. Looks like we may have some clearing for Thursday and Friday before another series of ill-defined storms pass through.

general announcements

Remember your information can save lives. If you see anything we should know about, please participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can also call us at 801-524-5304, email by clicking HERE, or include #utavy in your tweet or Instagram.

To get help in an emergency (to launch a rescue) in the Wasatch, call 911.  Be prepared to give your GPS coordinates or the run name. Dispatchers have a copy of the Wasatch Backcountry Ski map.

Backcountry Emergencies. It outlines your step-by-step method in the event of a winter backcountry incident.

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry, but no one is hurt and you do not need assistance, please notify the nearest ski area dispatch to avoid a needless response by rescue teams. Thanks.

Salt Lake and Park City – Alta Central (801-742-2033), Canyons Resort/PCMR Dispatch (435)615-1911

Snowbasin Resort Dispatch (801-620-1017), Powder Mountain Dispatch (801-745-3772 x 123).

Sundance Dispatch (801-223-4150)

EMAIL ADVISORY  If you would like to get the daily advisory by email you will need to subscribe here.​ 

DAWN PATROL Hotline updated daily by 5-530am - 888-999-4019 option 8.

Twitter Updates for your mobile phone - DETAILS

UDOT canyon closures:  LINK TO UDOT, or on Twitter, follow @UDOTavy, @CanyonAlerts or @AltaCentral

Utah Avalanche Center mobile app - Get your advisory on your iPhone along with great navigation and rescue tools.

Powderbird Helicopter Skiing - Blog/itinerary for the day

Lost or Found something in the backcountry? - http://nolofo.com/

Ski Utah mobile snow updates

To those skinning uphill at resorts:  it is your responsibility to know the resort policy on uphill travel.  You can see the uphill travel policy for each resort here. IMPORTANT: Before skinning or hiking at a resort under new snow conditions, check in with Ski Patrol.  Resorts can restrict or cut off access if incompatible with control and grooming operations.

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you shop from Backcountry.com or REI:  Click this link for Backcountry.com or this link to REI, shop, and they will donate a percent of your purchase price to the UAC.  Both offer free shipping (with some conditions) so this costs you nothing!

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you buy or sell on ebay - set the Utah Avalanche Center as a favorite non-profit in your ebay account here and click on ebay gives when you buy or sell.  You can choose to have your seller fees donated to the UAC, which doesn't cost you a penny.

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 exist.