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 3, 2007

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time it’s issued, but will be updated Sunday March 4, 2007.

 

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 3, 2007 and it’s about 7:00 am. Regularly scheduled avalanche advisories for the western Uinta’s are available on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and all holidays and are brought to you in partnership with Utah State Parks and Recreation.

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 801-231-2170, or email at [email protected] and fill me in with all the details. 

 

A SPECIAL AVALANCHE ADVISORY HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR THE WESTERN UINTA AND WASATCH MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN UTAH FOR THE WEEKEND. RECENT HEAVY SNOW AND STRONG WINDS HAVE OVERLOADED A WEAK SNOWPACK CREATING A CONSIDERABLE AVALANCHE DANGER. WARMING TEMPERATURES DURING THE DAY SATURDAY AND ESPECIALLY ON SUNDAY MAY INDUCE NATURAL AVALANCHING. HUMAN TRIGGERED AVALANCHES ARE PROBABLE ON STEEP SLOPES. PEOPLE SHOULD AVOID STEEP SLOPES AND AVALANCHE RUNOUT ZONES. PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPERT LEVEL AVALANCHE AND ROUTE FINDING SKILLS SHOULD AVOID BACKCOUNTRY TRAVEL.

 

Current Conditions:

Although a day late, March roared into town and Thursday night’s storm dumped a huge amount of light density snow in a short period of time with new snow totals in the 12”-18” range. Skies cleared overnight and temperatures crashed into negative territory. Currently at the trailheads it’s -10 degrees and at the high mountain top locations, a little easier to take at -4 degrees. With winds out of the east and northeast blowing 15-25 mph, it’ll feel like -26 degrees along the high ridges. After a meager start to the winter season we’ve received nearly 6’ of snow since February 10th and the riding and turning conditions are boarding on epic right now.

 

Avalanche Conditions:

Clearing skies yesterday afternoon allowed us to look around and it was easy to see many slopes throughout the range avalanched naturally and some were quite large, taking out several storms worth of snow. (Click here for some awesome avalanche pictures and a short video). Today we have two avalanche problems to contend with and they’ll have to be approached with two different mindsets. The first and most obvious avalanche problem will be the recent snow from Thursday’s storm. In addition to all the new snow, strong west and northwesterly winds blew along the ridges forming widespread, deep and sensitive wind drifts. Because the winds were so strong, drifting occurred not only near the ridges, but also lower down on the slope than you might expect. These drifts are easily identified by their round pillow-like appearance and are fairly predictable, breaking at your feet or around your machine. While mostly manageable, avalanches triggered in the new snow could break into deeper buried weak layers in the snowpack as they come crashing down the slope, creating an unmanageable slide which leads me to our next avalanche dragon- the deeper instabilities in the snowpack. The mid portion of our snowpack has persistent buried weaknesses that formed during the January dry spell and the next couple of days will be tricky as the snowpack begins to adjust to all the added weight from the recent storms and starts to strengthen. The stronger snow will feel solid under your machine, skis or board giving you a false sense of security, allowing you to ride steeper slopes without incident. If you’re unlucky enough to trigger an avalanche that breaks into deeper buried weak layers of the snowpack, the consequences will be devastating and unsurvivable. Today you’ll need to practice restraint in your terrain choices and stay off of and out from under steep slopes. Remember- you can tone your slope angles down and still have a great day.

 

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today on all slopes approaching 35 degrees and steeper with recent deposits of wind drifted snow, especially those facing northwest, north, northeast, east and southeast above about 8,000’. A CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger means human triggered avalanches are probable, natural avalanches possible.

 

Mountain Weather:

High pressure will begin to build over the area today and Sunday, resulting in mostly sunny skies and warming temperatures. Highs today at 8,000’ will be in the low to mid 20’s, at 10,000’ in the mid teens. Overnight lows will be near 10 degrees. Winds will become northerly, blowing 10-20 mph at most locations, gusting to 30 mph along the highest ridges, dying down late this afternoon. Sunday should be mostly sunny and much warmer with highs reaching into the low 40’s at 8,000’. Partly cloudy skies are expected Monday and a little storm system will bring some cloudiness to the region for Tuesday, but not much more than a flurry or two. High pressure returns for mid week.

 

Announcements:

I completed a preliminary investigation on the avalanche accident that occurred on Saturday Feb.17th in Buck Basin and it can be found here. Also there have been a number of close calls and unintentionally human triggered avalanches across the state in the past few days and pictures with descriptions of the events can be found here.

 

We finally got the Windy Peak weather station up and running. Click here for current conditions.

 

I’d like to thank Jim Shea, The Canyons and Colleen Graham from the Friends of the UAC for all their hard work in making the Know Before You Go fundraiser such a success!

 

The first annual western Uinta fundraising ride was an amazing success with nearly 150 people showing up for the ride alone!

I want to thank the Jim Shea Family Foundation, Rocky Mountain Sledders, the Wasatch Snowmobile Association and the Utah Snowmobile Association for all their tireless work in putting the event together. Thanks again to Team Thunderstruck and the Boondockers crew for helping out and schooling even the most experienced riders. Also, we couldn’t have pulled it off if it weren’t for Chad Booth who did an incredible job as both master of ceremonies and auctioneer. Finally, it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of everyone who attended… you folks are awesome!  

 

I want to thank the crew at Tri-City Performance in Springville along with Polaris and the Utah Snowmobile Association for partnering with the avalanche center and stepping up to the plate by providing a new sled for this season!  Click here, to see the new ride!

 

We installed Beacon Basin at the Noblett’s Trailhead and it’s good to go. I want to thank Doug, Bill, Jared, Brad and Wally who

unselfishly took time out of their powder day to help out the riding community… you guys rock!

 

Free avalanche awareness classes are available. Give me a call at 801-231-2170 or email [email protected] and get one scheduled before the season gets too crazy!

 
If any terms confuse you, take a look at our new avalanche encyclopedia.

 

For avalanche photos click here.

 

General Information: 

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’ll update this advisory by 7:00 am on Sunday March 4, 2007.

This advisory is also available by calling 1-800-648-7433 or

1-888-999-4019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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