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 21, 2007

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

Overnight a cold front began pushing through the region giving us about an inch or two of snow. The bigger news is temperatures have finally fallen below freezing at most locations. Currently at 10,000’ it’s 29 degrees and at the trailhead elevations right around 32 degrees. 11,000’ temperatures are in the mid 20’s. West and southwest winds blew in the 30’s, gusting into the low 50’s for most of yesterday afternoon and evening, but have backed off and are now blowing 25 mph with an occasional gust in the low 40’s along the ridgelines. Riding and turning conditions are going to be variable and elevation dependant. It may be a morning to have an extra cup of coffee and wait for a few more inches of snow to stack up, smoothing out the old ruts and helping to cushion the molar rattling frozen tracks.  

 

Avalanche Conditions:

Finally, some colder temperatures… and a little new snow! The storm system working its way through the area today will give us more seasonable temperatures helping to lock up the snowpack, alleviating some of our wet slab concerns. However, I don’t think it’s a done deal quite yet and today you’ll need to be aware of two avalanche problems.

First, while it’s a bit cooler this morning, it’ll take a little more time before the colder air can penetrate the snowpack and lock up the wet layers of snow beneath the surface. So for today, there is still a possibility of triggering a wet slab avalanche on steep slopes at all elevations. While it’s old news, a snowmobiler had a close call late Monday afternoon when he triggered an avalanche on a steep southerly facing slope in upper Weber Canyon. The slide was 2’-3’ deep, 250’ wide, running about 500’ vertically. Fortunately the rider was able to get out of the moving snow and was ok.

The second more manageable avalanche concern today will be new wind drifts that formed yesterday and overnight along the leeward side of upper elevation ridges. These will be shallow, predictably breaking at or below you skis or machine, but they‘ve formed on smooth slick bed surfaces and may have the potential to take you for an unplanned ride, especially in steep terrain. Slope cuts and terrain management are going to be the ticket and your best defensive measures on big, open slopes.

 

Bottom Line:

The danger of triggering wet avalanches remains MODERATE today on all slopes steeper than about 35 degrees and the danger will be more pronounced in steep terrain with a shallow refreeze. A MODERATE avalanche danger means human triggered avalanches are possible.

There is also a MODERATE danger of triggering a new wind drift, especially on steep upper elevation slopes.

 

Mountain Weather:

A cold front stalled across northern Utah will move south this morning. Periods of snow, possibly heavy at times, will continue through the morning hours before tapering off this afternoon. We can expect an additional 1”-3” of snow before the storm moves out of the area. Temperatures will be cool off today with highs at 8,000’ only reaching into the mid 30’s and at 10,000’ near 27 degrees. Overnight lows under partly cloudy skies will be in the upper teens. Southwesterly winds this morning will blow 15-25 mph with gusts in the 40’s along the most exposed ridgelines. Winds switch to the northeast later in the day and should relax into the 10-20 mph range. Partly cloudy skies with highs in the upper 30’s are on tap for Thursday and a weak little system brushes by the region on Friday morning. High pressure and warm temperatures return for the weekend.

 

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 24, 2007.

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

1-888-999-4019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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