Wasatch Cache and Uinta National Forests

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

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

.

Avalanche advisory

saturdAY march 4, 2006

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am sunday march 5, 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 Saturday March 4, 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 good to go and ready to use at the Noblett’s Trailhead. While you’re waiting for your partners 
to gear up, swing by and test your avalanche beacon skills. It’s free and easily accessible from the parking lot. A big thanks 
goes out to members of the Utah Snowmobile Association for assisting in the installation 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 the Utah Avalanche Center’s western Uinta avalanche forecasting 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:

Light snow is still falling in the wake of last night’s cold front and it looks like most areas received close to 4” of new, light density snow. The good news is the winds have finally relaxed and switched to the west and northwest. Overnight, hourly wind speed averages along the high ridges have been in the teens with gusts near 30 mph, but they’ve been decreasing since about 5:00 this morning. Current temperatures are in the low 20’s at 8,000’ and in the low to mid teens at most mountain top locations. The riding and sliding conditions will be a mixed bag today, with mid elevation, wind sheltered terrain being the ticket for soft settled powder.

Avalanche Conditions:

It’s been a pretty wild weather week with strong winds, a little bit of rain, some new snow… and more strong winds. As a matter of fact south and southwest winds began blowing mid day Thursday and raged all day Friday with hourly averages in the 30’s and gusts in the low 50’s along the exposed upper elevation ridges and peaks. My partner Dave Ream and I nearly got blown off our machines yesterday by the hurricane force winds. What really surprised us was how much snow was getting blown around. In the past day or two there has been a significant amount of drifting, resulting in several avalanches that I know of. The first one was a large natural cornice failure and avalanche off of Hoyt’s Peak, which is near the town of Marion. This hard slab avalanche occurred on a steep northeast facing slope, was close to 2’ deep, 100’ wide and ran about 200 vertical feet into a group of trees. The other big news was a snowmobile triggered slide my other partner Ted Scroggin sniffed out over on the North Slope. This avalanche was 2’ deep, 200’ wide and close to 300’ in length. It was triggered on a heavily wind loaded, northeast facing slope about 37 degrees in steepness and probably occurred sometime Thursday. Both slides were in the wind zone, above 10,000’ in elevation.

For today there will be two main avalanche problems- new snow avalanches from the storm overnight and deeper hard slab avalanches from the past few days of wind. First off, avalanches within the new snow should be fairly shallow and manageable, breaking at your feet or machine rather than up above you. As always, get as much information about the slope you want to ride on by testing similar, small slopes with little consequence.

The second, more serious avalanche problem isn’t as straight forward because hard slabs are tricky animals. They give us a false sense of security, allowing you to get well out onto the slope before they avalanche. To make matters worse, the slabs will be difficult to detect today because now they’re covered over with a little bit of new snow. The safest bet is to avoid any steep wind loaded upper elevation slope, especially those that have a fat, rounded appearance or hollow drum-like sound. The most likely place to find these slabs will be on the leeward side of ridges which face the north half of the compass.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is MODERATE today on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. Human triggered avalanches are possible.

Be aware there are pockets of CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger in upper elevation terrain near and above tree-line, especially on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees which have both old and new deposits of wind drifted snow. In this type of terrain, human triggered avalanche are probable.

In wind sheltered terrain the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

Unsettled weather will keep a moist northwesterly flow in place for the area through the morning. Expect cloudy skies and light snow showers until about midday, with partly cloudy on tap for the afternoon. Highs today at 8,000’ will be in the upper 20’s and at 10,000’ near 20 degrees. Overnight lows will dip into the mid teens. Gusty west winds in the 15-30 mph range along the upper elevation ridges will gradually diminish today and a southerly flow will take over tonight. Sunday is shaping up to be a beautiful spring day in the mountains with mostly sunny skies and highs about 10 degrees warmer than today’s. Another moist winter storm will approach the region late in the day Monday giving us a good shot of snow through early Wednesday.

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 Sunday March 5, 2006.

Thanks for calling!