Wasatch Cache and Uinta National Forests

In partnership with: Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center and Utah State Parks.

Avalanche advisory

Sunday, March 2, 2003

Good Morning. This is Craig Gordon with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory for the Western Uinta Mountains including but not limited to the terrain surrounding Chalk Creek, Smith-Moorehouse, the Mirror Lake Highway, and Woodland. Fieldwork recently performed near Daniels and on the Evanston side of the range indicates a slightly weaker snowpack than what we’re seeing in the central Uintas.

This advisory is made possible through a generous grant provided by Utah State Parks and will be available for the rest of the winter on weekends and holidays.

Today is Sunday, March 2, 2003, and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:

Yesterdays little brush by produced another 2”-4” of light density snow along the upper elevations throughout the range. New snow totals this past week are highly elevation dependent though in favored areas we’ve received close to 2’. Skies are clearing, winds are light and northerly, and temperatures along the ridges are in the upper single digits. While sun exposed aspects have developed crusts of varying thickness, excellent riding and turning conditions still exist on the shady slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

Last weekends strong storm event overloaded our fragile snowpack and much of the upper elevation terrain throughout the range experienced a significant natural avalanche cycle. The avalanches I looked at this past week had several common themes. They were all occurring on steep, rocky, wind-loaded slopes, above 10,000’ in elevation, and on all aspects. All of these avalanches were running on weak, faceted snow close to the ground.

Yesterday a human triggered avalanche occurred on the north aspect of ‘The Duke’ near Castle Peak. This slope was above 10,000’ in elevation, the slope angle was close to 35 degrees in steepness, and the underlying terrain was rocky. The avalanche ran about 100 yards and fortunately no one was caught.

This avalanche fits the trend of many of the natural avalanches that have occurred this past week. Our snowpack is quite complex right now in terms of snow depths and strengths. In terrain where the snowpack is deep and strong it’s possible to get onto steeper, upper elevation terrain without incident. However, many of these slopes are connected to areas that are shallow and weak. The most likely place to trigger a deep, hard slab avalanche is if you’re unlucky enough to find a weak area within the snowpack. Once initiated today’s avalanches will be large, dangerous, and possibly unsurvivable!

It’s going to take some time for our snowpack to heal and get used to all of this additional weight, especially in the upper elevation terrain. The safest bet for today is to keep an eye on your slope angles and stick to mid and lower elevations where less snow fell and the winds were better behaved.

The light density snow we’ve received the past few days is sluffing easily on steep slopes. While usually not to dangerous be aware that these loose, new snow avalanches could entrain enough snow to carry you over a cliff or bury you in a gully.

In addition, the sun is getting strong these days and that will increase the possibility of wet avalanches on sun-exposed aspects throughout the day. You’ll want to get off of and out from under steep, sunny slopes as the day progresses.

If your travels steer you into steep, upper elevation terrain today continue to be diligent by practicing safe travel techniques. Many avalanche incidents occur when there’s more than one person on the slope. So ride or ski a slope one at a time, get out of the way and into a safe location at the bottom of the slope, and always keep an eye on your partner. In addition, carry the appropriate rescue gear such as an avalanche beacon, shovel, and probe and know how to use these tools.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger remains CONSIDERABLE today on all upper elevation aspects, above 10,000’, on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees. Dangerous human triggered avalanches are probable.

At mid elevations sluffing within the new snow will be the main concern today, though there is still a MODERATE or localized danger of triggering an avalanche into deeper, buried, weak layers on northwest through east facing aspects on slopes that are steeper than about 35 degrees.

On slopes less steep than about 35 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW. Even if you’re playing on low angle terrain this weekend be aware of steep slopes above and adjacent to you.

Mountain Weather:

A ridge of high pressure will be over Utah today producing mostly sunny skies and slightly warmer temperatures. Highs today at 8,000’ will be in the mid to upper 20’s and at 10,000’ near 20 degrees. Overnight lows will be in the low teens. Winds will be out of the northwest and light this morning and should switch to the west and increase in speed towards evening. A weakening storm system will affect the region on Monday and we should see increasing clouds with snow developing late Monday night. For the extended forecast, right now it looks like a roll of the dice for storminess this week. The computer models continue to disagree with each other, but conditions look favorable for a chance of snow each day through Friday.

General Information:

If you’re getting out and about please let us know what you’re seeing, especially if you see or trigger an avalanche. Call 1-800-662-4140, or 801-231-2170, or email to [email protected] or fax to 801-524-6301. Your observations could help to save someone’s life. I’ve received some great observations this past week and thanks to those of you who called in with timely snowpack and avalanche information. Please keep it coming!

We will be offering free snowmobile specific avalanche education this year. To schedule a talk and or a field day please call 801-231-2170.

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.

I will update this advisory by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 8, 2003.

Thanks for calling!