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

wednesdAY december 21, 2005

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am saturday December 24, 2005.

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 Wednesday, December 21, 2005 and it’s 7:00 a.m. Avalanche advisories for the western Uintas are available on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and all holidays.

This advisory covers the terrain from Daniels Summit, to Mirror Lake, to the North Slope of the western Uinta Mountains. That’s a lot of turf and I can’t be in all of these places at once. Your snow and avalanche observations are critical to this program and help to save other riders lives by getting accurate information out to the public. I’m interested in what you’re seeing especially if you see or trigger an avalanche. Please call 1-800-662-4140, or 801-231-2170, or email to [email protected] and fill us in with all the details.

Announcements:

I’ll be giving a free public avalanche awareness talk at the Wanship Fire Station on Wednesday, Dec. 21st at 7:00 pm. 
The Moffit Peak weather station is up and running. This site was made possible through generous donations
by BRORA, The Utah Snowmobile Association, and the National Weather Service. You can view data by clicking here.

For avalanche photos click here.

Current Conditions:

High pressure will move over the region today, giving us partly cloudy skies for most of the day and very mild temperatures. As a matter of fact it’s downright balmy out there this morning, nearly 30 degrees warmer than a week ago at this time. Temperatures are in the mid to upper 20’s at both the trailheads and along the ridges. Northerly winds picked up at about 8:00 pm last night and are blowing 15-25 mph along the high peaks. A trace of snow fell in the past 24 hours and 10” has fallen since Monday. The combination of warm temperatures, wind and yesterdays green-housing made for some funky riding conditions, but I did find good, creamy settled powder on protected shady slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

In all my years in the mountains, yesterday probably ranked as the foggiest, worst visibility day I’ve ever experienced. My partners and I stumbled around in a Hitchcock thriller-like fog, barely seeing the tail lights of each others sleds, a mere hood’s length away. Unfortunately it never cleared up enough to see any new avalanche activity- if you’re getting out today I’d be psyched to hear what you’re seeing. What we did find though, was the winds had blown Monday’s storm snow around, forming stiff, but stubborn wind drifts at the upper elevations. These slabs are sitting on top of lighter density snow, so we’ve got an upside down layer cake or what we call a density inversion. Today’s main avalanche problem is going to be at the upper elevations where these slabs formed on the leeward side of ridges. I think the warmer temperatures are going to help settle the instabilities out rather quickly today, but remember; these stiffer slabs can be tricky and have a tendency to break above you. Since the riding is tricky up high anyway, I’d avoid all of this and head for low angle, wind sheltered terrain where you’ll find much better snow.

The second avalanche problem today will be the possibility of wet avalanche activity on steep sunny slopes as the day heats up. Wet slides are generally slow moving, but can pile up a lot of debris. So you’ll definitely want to avoid traveling around terrain traps like gullies, especially during the heat of the day.

Bottom Line:

In upper elevation terrain, at and above tree line, the avalanche danger is MODERATE today, on steep northwest through east facing slopes with both new and old wind drifts. Human triggered avalanches are possible.

On the other half of the compass, the avalanche danger will rise to MODERATE on steep, sunny slopes with daytime heating, particularly at mid and lower elevations.

In wind protected terrain and on slopes less steep than 35 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

It’s going to feel like the first day of spring, rather than the first day of winter as a series of warm, but weakening storms slides into the area. Highs at 8,000’ will be in the low 40’s and at 10,000’ in the mid 30’s. Overnight lows will be near freezing. Winds will become southwesterly later in the day and should be blowing 15-25 mph along the ridges. Snow showers will develop late tonight giving us 2”-3” by Thursday morning. Another shot of snow is expected Thursday night into Friday and 48 hour snow totals should be in the 4”-8” range. Temperatures will get cooler over the next few days, but winds will be getting stronger. Things calm down by the weekend and it looks like a warm and sunny holiday.

General Information:

If you haven’t taken one of our free snowmobile specific avalanche awareness classes, schedule one now before things get too crazy. Give me a call at 801-231-2170 and I’d be happy to tailor a talk for your group.

Also, once there’s enough snow, I’ll have the “Beacon Basin” training site up and running again this year at the Nobletts trailhead.

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 expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am on Saturday December 24, 2005.

Thanks for calling!