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

wednesday march 14, 2007

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time it’s issued, but will be updated Saturday March 17, 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 Wednesday, March 14, 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. Thanks to everyone for all the great avalanche info and pictures this week.

 

Current Conditions:

High clouds began streaming in over the area late last night ahead of a weak cold front slated to reach the region sometime late this afternoon. About the only place it feels like winter this morning is along the high ridges were winds are out of the northwest blowing 20-30 mph. The snowpack hasn’t received a good solid refreeze since the morning of the 11th and after yesterday’s blistering high of 50 degrees at 10,000’ it’s cooled off to a mild 33 degrees at both the trailhead and ridge-top elevations. Riding and sliding conditions consist of patches of damp powder on high elevation north facing slopes to supportable melt-freeze crusts on south aspects. In between there’s everything from challenging crusts to rock hard, molar rattling old tracks.   

 

Avalanche Conditions:

Yesterday, Ted and I poked around on upper elevation north facing slopes where we not only found good powder riding, we also got to witness a natural avalanche as it peeled off the steep hanging snowfields of the east face of Reid’s Peak during the heat of the day. Wet point releases have also been occurring on steep west facing slopes late in the day too. Today should be much of the same, so you’ll want to follow the usual spring mantra and stay off of and out from under steep, sun exposed slopes as the day heats up.

In addition to heat related wet avalanches on steep east, south and west facing slopes, I think there’s still an isolated possibility of triggering a deep avalanche which breaks into weak, sugary facets on slopes facing the north half of the compass. The most likely place to trigger a slide like this will be on slopes which have a shallow snowpack and steep rocky terrain would be a likely suspect.

While the avalanche activity in our neck of the woods has been predictably limited, the central Wasatch Mountains have experienced an interesting avalanche cycle the past few days. (Click here for pictures)

Historically, our temperatures tend to be just a few degrees cooler than our nearby neighbors and this is probably helping to keep things at bay for the moment. However, with our weak snowpack it’s only a matter of time before the heat catches up with us and things start to come unglued. After today’s little cool down, the combination of above average temperatures and marginal nightly refreezes are on tap for the foreseeable future. This one-two punch may be the recipe to send the Uinta’s into widespread avalanche cycle by weeks end.

 

Bottom Line:

The danger of wet avalanche activity will rise from MODERATE this morning to CONSIDERABLE during the heat of the day on steep sun exposed slopes at all elevations. A CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger means human triggered avalanches are probable, natural avalanches possible.

There is also a MODERATE danger of triggering a deep, dangerous old hard slab especially on steep, rocky upper elevation slopes with a shallow weak snowpack and large, dangerous human triggered avalanches are still possible.

 

Mountain Weather:

A mixture of high thin clouds and sunshine are slated for the region today with a slight chance of a snow shower or two and cooling temperatures late this afternoon. Snow levels initially near 10,000 feet will fall to around 8000 feet by early this evening. Highs today at 8,000’ will be in the mid to upper 40’s and at 10,000’ near 42 degrees. Overnight lows under mostly cloudy skies will dip into the mid 20’s. Winds will become westerly during the day and blow in the 20-30 mph range with an occasional gust in the 40’s along the high ridges. As the front approaches, winds shift to the northwest and should mellow out by morning. High pressure quickly rebounds across the area for the latter half of the week into the upcoming weekend with continued warm temperatures.

 

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.

 

The Windy Peak weather station is 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 Saturday March 17, 2007.

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

1-888-999-4019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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