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

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. Today is Sunday, December 28, 2003 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

It’s a cold one out there this morning and current 10,000’ temperatures are near zero. Winds are clipping along out of the northwest at speeds of 10-20 mph with gusts in the mid 30’s along the ridges. 2” of new snow has fallen in the past 24 hours and excellent riding and turning conditions can be found especially in wind-sheltered terrain. The storm snow is slow to settle and trail breaking will still be a bit of a chore today.

Avalanche Conditions:

I’ve allowed the avalanche warning to expire for the region, however that doesn’t mean that we’re out of the woods quite yet. While I think most of the natural avalanche activity is beginning to wane, many slopes hang in the balance waiting for a trigger. An interesting avalanche was triggered yesterday near Windy Peak in upper Weber Canyon. A skier descending a relatively low angle slope was able to remotely trigger a hard slab avalanche, on an adjacent steeper slope from about 100’ feet away. This avalanche occurred on a 37-degree slope that was west through north facing at about 10,000’ in elevation. The slide was 1’-3’ deep, 100’ wide, and due to terrain features only ran 150’ vertically. The weak layer was faceted snow near the ground. This was a fairly small slide however the debris pile was over six feet in depth!

Today you’ll still need to have your avalanche radar fully tuned in especially if your travels take you into steep upper elevation terrain. While avalanche activity might not be as widespread as the past few days, the consequences of triggering a slide remain quite severe. Once triggered, today’s avalanches have the possibility of breaking into buried weak layers near the ground, especially in terrain where the snowpack is shallow and weak. This would produce a large, scary, and possibly unsurvivable avalanche.

The winds have been strong and variable since late last Thursday and wind slabs have formed in unusual places. Be suspect of sensitive wind-drifts near ridges and around terrain features such as sub-ridges, chutes, and gullies. In addition, there has been a lot of mid slope loading as well; so steep break-overs should be approached with caution. And finally, cornices have grown and have the possibility of breaking back further than you might expect.

Remember to practice your safe travel rituals today by only putting one person on the slope at a time, have an escape route planned, and communicate this with your partners. Carry beacons, shovels, and probes and should know how to use them.

If you’re playing on low angle slopes be aware of steep slopes above and adjacent to you.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today at upper elevations near and above timberline on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. Human triggered avalanches are probable and natural avalanches are possible.

At mid elevations the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. Human triggered avalanches are possible.

At low elevations and in wind-sheltered terrain on slopes less steep than 30 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

Weak high pressure is beginning to build and we might even see the sun for a while today. Temperatures will remain cold with highs at 10,000’ in the mid single digits and at 8,000’ near 15 degrees. Overnight lows will be near zero. Winds will be out of the northwest for most of the day at speeds of 15-25 mph along the upper elevation ridgelines. The winds should switch to the west late in the day and then southwest on Monday and wind speeds should really get cranking in advance of another vigorous system slated to affect the area through Tuesday. This won’t be the block -buster snow event like our last one, but we could see about a foot of snow when it’s all said and done.

General Information:

We can always use snow and avalanche information and your snowpack and avalanche observations could help to save someone’s life! If you see or trigger an avalanche give us a call at 801-231-2170 or 1-800-662-4140.

Also, if you’d like to schedule a free avalanche awareness talk and/or field day give us a call at 801-524-5304.

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 will be updated by 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2003.

Thanks for calling.