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

sunday march 18, 2007

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time it’s issued, but will be updated Wednesday March 21, 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 Sunday, March 18, 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.

 

A SPECIAL AVALANCHE ADVISORY HAS BEEN CONTINUED FOR THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN UTAH, INCLUDING THE WESTERN UINTA’S. A WEAK SNOW PACK AND RECORD BREAKING WARM TEMPERATURES HAVE CREATED A CONSIDERABLE TO HIGH AVALANCHE DANGER...WITH BOTH HUMAN TRIGGERED AND NATURAL AVALANCHES PROBABLE. THESE DANGEROUS AVALANCHES HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE VERY LARGE AND LONG RUNNING. STEEP SLOPES AND AREAS BELOW STEEP SLOPES SHOULD BE AVOIDED. PEOPLE WITHOUT EXCELLENT BACKCOUNTRY AVALANCHE AND ROUTE FINDING SKILLS SHOULD STAY OUT OF THE BACKCOUNTRY TODAY.

 

Current Conditions:

Even under mostly clear skies, it remained relatively mild last night. There was a slight surface refreeze and currently temperatures are pretty uniform at all elevations, hovering right around freezing. After a spike in wind speeds yesterday afternoon, they’ve quieted down and are blowing out of the northwest at speeds of 15-20 mph along the ridges. Yesterday the snow surface was toast at around 12:00 or so, and with a marginal overnight freeze it’ll become bottomless glop by about the same time.  

 

Avalanche Conditions:

The lack of a solid refreeze the past few nights is taking its toll on the snowpack, especially at mid and lower elevations. With strong sunshine overhead yesterday, I felt like an ant under a magnifying glass and by lunch time the snow had become completely unsupportable… kinda like riding in a giant slurpy.  While most of the lower elevation avalanche activity has been confined to pockety wet slabs, remember- even if you’re playing on relatively benign slopes, look at the terrain you’re riding under. Wet avalanches can start on steep slopes above you and can pile up tremendous amounts of debris on road cuts and in terrain traps such as gullies. Also, avoid taking a break or changing a spark plug under steep slopes especially during the heat of the day. Today you’ll need to get an early start and call it a day once the snow gets wet and gloppy. With a slight refreeze the snow surface will feel hard and supportable, but underneath the supportable “melt-freeze” crust, the sugary facets formed way back in January are weak and saturated with water. Today it’ll be possible to ride on a slope and feel confident with its strength. However, wet slabs work much like their dangerous winter cousin- dry snow hard slab avalanches. Once you find a weak spot in the snowpack, it’ll collapse, and in this case you’ll trigger a large, dangerous and unsurvivable wet slab avalanche. Wet slabs are nothing to mess with because the consequences are so severe. Not only do these slow moving giants snap trees like tooth picks, they’ll grab a hold of you and your machine, making it impossible to get out of the cement-like snow.

Today you’ll need to carefully assess the terrain you’re riding in and take the time to dig into the snowpack to see what kind of snow you’re riding on. If you’ve got a strong supportable slab on top of weak, wet sugary facets… you’ve got a problem.

These warm temperatures won’t last forever and there’s a change in the weather pattern on tap for early in the week along with the possibility of some late season powder riding. If you take a conservative approach with your riding today and tomorrow, you’ll be rewarded with some freshies by mid week.

 

Bottom Line:

The danger of wet avalanche activity will rise from CONSIDERABLE- meaning human triggered avalanches are probable and natural avalanches possible- to HIGH during the heat of the day on steep sun exposed slopes at all elevations. A HIGH avalanche danger means both human triggered and natural avalanches are likely.

 

Mountain Weather:

Two more days of sweltering weather are tap for the region before a dramatic change takes place. Today will be a carbon copy of Saturday, though a weak cold front moving through the area early this morning might keep us from record setting high temperatures. At 10,000’ we should hit 42 degrees and it’ll reach into the mid 50’s at 8,000’. Overnight lows will be right around freezing. The flow aloft shifts to southwest tonight ahead of much stronger Pacific system anticipated to reach the area by Tuesday night. Wind and clouds will increase late Monday, though it will remain very mild. A cold front will be preceded by scattered showers late Monday night and Tuesday. An organized area of heavy snow develops Tuesday evening and then scattered snow showers are slated for early Wednesday. It looks like we should see 4”-8” of new snow before it’s said and done. High pressure and rapidly warming temperatures return for the latter half of the 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.

 

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 Wednesday March 21, 2007.

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

1-888-999-4019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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