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 24, 2007

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time it’s issued, but will be updated Sunday March 25, 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 24, 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:

A weak weather disturbance raced through the area late yesterday afternoon, depositing about an inch or two of new snow at the upper elevations. Southeasterly winds increased as well, blowing in the 20’s and 30’s along the highest ridges and in past hour or so, have been averaging 30 mph with gusts in the low 40’s. With mostly clear skies the snowpack received a solid refreeze and temperatures are in the mid 20’s at 8,000’ and it’s 22 degrees along the high peaks. Riding and turning conditions are much improved with a few inches of dry powder to be had on upper elevation north facing slopes and “darn good” corn ready for harvest on sunny slopes. Lower elevation snow is rock hard in the morning and if you’ve got scratchers, they’ll certainly save burning through a hi-fax before the snow softens.   

 

Avalanche Conditions:

It’ll be a spectacular day in the mountains as we’re finally back to a spring-like pattern of warm sunny days and cold clear nights. The below freezing overnight temperatures are locking the snowpack in place and I haven’t heard of any new avalanche activity since a snowmobiler triggered a sizeable wet slab in upper Weber Canyon late Monday afternoon. The ticket for today is to get on the snow early and follow the sun around as it warms the snow surface. East aspects will soften first followed by southeast, south, southwest and finally west. Riding on steep sun-exposed slopes too late in the day will increase your chances of triggering a nasty wet slab avalanche on all aspects and at all elevations. In terrain where the snowpack is shallow and weak, avalanches may break into older layers of snow deeper in the pack or even near the ground. So, if you’re spinning your track down beneath the supportable crust or post holing knee-deep in wet soup, it’s time to get onto a cooler slope or perhaps just call it a day. When it’s all said and done you should be off the snow and back to the rig sharing lies and enjoying a cold drink before the snow gets too gloppy.

 

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is generally LOW this morning, increasing to MODERATE on all sun-exposed slopes steeper than about 35 degrees with daytime heating. A MODERATE avalanche danger means human triggered avalanche are possible.

 

Mountain Weather:

Dry and mild weather is on tap through the weekend, but it does look like the pattern will change by about Tuesday. Today skies will be mostly sunny and highs at 8,000’ will reach into the low 50’s, at 10,000’ near 40 degrees. Overnight lows should dip into the mid 20’s. Winds will be out of the east this morning blowing 10-20 mph with gusts in the 40’s along the highest ridges, but should turn more northerly as the day wares on and will mellow out by about lunch time. Sunday looks about the same. A weak cold front moves through the region on Monday, producing scattered snow showers and gusty southerly winds. South winds will become strong Monday night and persist into Tuesday. An upper trough will push a cold front into the region on Tuesday and this will sweep across Utah from southwest to northeast producing heavy precipitation. The cold upper trough moves through Tuesday night and a cold unstable west to northwest flow lingers through Wednesday. I’ll have a better handle on strength, timing and snow amounts for tomorrow’s advisory.

 

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 Sunday March 25, 2007.

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

1-888-999-4019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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