Wasatch Cache and Uinta National Forests

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

Tri-City Performance, Polaris, the Utah Snowmobile Association, the National Weather Service, BRORA, and Backcountry Access.

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Avalanche advisory

sundAY january 8, 2006

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am wednesday january 11, 2006.

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, January 8, 2006 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:

“Beacon Basin” is successfully installed and ready to use at the Noblett’s Trailhead.  While you’re waiting for your partners 
to gear up, swing by and test your beacon skills. It’s free and easily accessible from the parking lot. A big thanks goes 
out to Doug, Bill and Scott for rounding up the troops to help out and to Backcountry Access for providing all the gear. 
 
A special thanks to Tri-City Performance, Polaris and The Utah Snowmobile Association for stepping up to the plate 
and partnering to provide a new sled for this program. 
 
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:

A strong, but short-lived cold front is racing through the area bringing light snow and much colder temperatures. Overnight we’ve received about 2” of medium density snow and it’s 15 degrees colder than yesterday at this time. Currently, 8,000’ temperatures are in the mid 20’s and at 11,000’ it’s a chilly 14 degrees. Winds have turned around to the northwest and are averaging 20 mph with gusts in the low 40’s. Upper elevation terrain has seen a bit of wind damage and southerly facing slopes are crusty, but good snow can still be found on sheltered shady slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

Strong southerly winds early yesterday, formed sensitive wind drifts at upper elevations, particularly near ridges and around terrain features like gullies. Fortunately, these new wind drifts weren’t too deep and pretty easy to manage. Winds changed direction overnight and are now out of the west and northwest and coupled with a few inches of new snow, a fresh batch of wind slabs would’ve have formed overnight. Today’s drifts may be a little bit deeper and more widespread, but a well placed slope cut can help mitigate the situation. As always, think about the consequences of your actions because even a small avalanche can slam you into a group of trees or carry you over a cliff, ruining your day. The other avalanche problem for today is the deep hard slabs I’ve been talking about for the past week. It’s been about three days since I’ve heard of any big, scary avalanches and I think it’s getting harder and harder to trigger one of these monsters. However, I wouldn’t be letting my guard down especially if I were getting in steep, northerly facing, rocky, upper elevation terrain that has seen little or no traffic this season. The possibility, albeit remote, still exists to trigger a large and dangerous avalanche in this type of terrain.

Bottom Line:

At upper elevations, at and above tree-line, the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, especially those with both old and recent deposits of wind drifted snow, facing the north half of the compass. A MODERATE avalanche danger means human triggered avalanches are possible.

On wind sheltered slopes less than 35 degrees and on slopes facing the south half of the compass the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

A series of cold weather disturbances will race across the region through tonight. The first one is already exiting and rapid clearing should occur in the next few hours. We get a break during the day, but then clouds will be increasing and snow will begin to develop late this afternoon. We might be able to squeak another 2”-4” of snow out of this system before everything moves out of the state late this evening. Temperatures will be much colder today with highs at 8,000’ near 20 degrees and at 10,000’ in the mid teens. Overnight lows are expected to be near zero. Winds will be out of the northwest with hourly averages in the 20’s and gusts in the 40’s along the high ridges. We can look forward to partly cloudy skies and much warmer temperatures Monday and Tuesday with highs reaching into the mid 30’s. A better looking system is lining up to move into the area late Tuesday night into Wednesday and the computer models predict a strong cold front with a good shot of snow. Another system may affect the region next weekend.

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.

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 Wednesday January 11, 2006.

Thanks for calling!