Advisory: Uintas Area Mountains | utahavalanchecenter.org

Avalanche Advisory

Advisory: Uintas Area Mountains	Issued by Craig Gordon for Saturday - December 26, 2015 - 4:54am

bottom line

The north half of the compass remains sketchy. At mid and upper elevations at and above treeline, a HIGH avalanche danger exists, especially on steep, wind drifted slopes. Human triggered avalanches are very likely, particularly in terrain with an easterly component to its aspect. Any slide triggered today will be deep, dangerous, and quite possibly, unsurvivable.

On the other half of the compass, you'll find a CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger on south facing terrain and human triggered slides are likely on steep slopes, especially those that had old snow prior to the big Solstice storm.

Looking for a place to ride today and avoid avalanches? Simply stick to low angle terrain with no steep slopes above or adjacent to where you're riding or choose big, wide open meadows where you can practice carving deep trenches.

special avalanche bulletin

THIS SPECIAL AVALANCHE ADVISORY IS FOR THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN UTAH, TO INCLUDE SOUTHEAST IDAHO, THE BEAR RIVER RANGE, THE WASATCH RANGE, AND THE WESTERN UINTAS. HEAVY SNOW AND STRONG WINDS HAVE LED TO DANGEROUS AVALANCHE CONDITIONS WITH MANY AVALANCHES BREAKING TO THE GROUND. AVOID BEING ON OR BENEATH STEEP TERRAIN AS AVALANCHES MAY BE TRIGGERED FROM BELOW.

Click HERE to view a viddy that pretty much sums up what we're dealing with.

current conditions

For some technical reason, nearly all the weather stations in the Uinta's are offline, so I'm flying with no real-time weather data this morning. However, extrapolating from some nearby sites, it looks like the range picked up 3"-6" of very light density snow yesterday. Skies cleared last night and under a big, bright, beautiful moon, temperatures crashed like a bad dotcom investment in the 90's. At the trailheads it's a diesel gelling -5 to -10 degrees. Along the ridges temperatures aren't much colder, but with a stiff northerly wind blowing 20-40 mph, it'll feel like -33 degrees. Riding and turning conditions are all-time. It's been an amazing storm cycle for the eastern front with just over four feet stacking up since Tuesday. Yep... it's over-the-head and over-the hood!

Trip reports and observations are found here.

recent activity

A close call occurred Thursday in between Tower Mountain and Currant Creek Peak. Here is a great firsthand account. Clearly breaking wide and to the ground, avalanche conditions remain quite dangerous. Above, top notch Uinta observer, avalanche professional, a member of Wasatch County SAR, and of course, all around great guy, Tyler St. Jeor investigates this slide which broke nearly as deep as he is tall!

Recent avalanche observations are found here.

See or trigger an avalanche? Shooting cracks? Hear a collapse? It's simple. Go here to fill out an observation.

Avalanche Problem 1

type	aspect/elevation	characteristics
		LIKELIHOOD LIKELY UNLIKELY SIZE LARGE SMALL TREND INCREASING DANGER SAME DECREASING DANGER over the next 24 hours
description Winds have been busy at work overnight, blowing lots of light density snow around, and forming drifts sensitive to the additional weight of a rider. Today's shallow slabs will predictably break at or below your skis, board, or sled and are generally manageable in size. But don't get lured into thinking this is the only avalanche dragon we're dealing with today. Remember- we've gotta think not only about the snow we're riding in, but also the snow we're riding on. And deeper in the snowpack, yeah, that's where the rubber meets the road. Prior to the big Solstice storm, our snowpack was a weak sugary mess. In just a couple of days we've added a tremendous amount of dense, wind driven, water laden snow, ontop of a fragile, shaky foundation. You probably wouldn't build your house on a structure like this and I'm sure not gonna bet my life on it. So here's the deal... much of the range slid naturally and there's reports of avalanches everywhere and that's good news. The bad news is, many slopes still hang in the balance waiting for a trigger like us to come along and tip the scales. Now comes the tricky part. You can probably ride plenty of steep slopes and not trigger a slide and think you're good to go. However, since it's pretty much been snowing and blowing all week, it'll gonna be hard to tell what slopes are intact and which have already avalanched. Unless you've got a keen eye or you've been carefully tracking a certain zone, your safest bet is to simply avoid steep slopes altogether. Not every slope you ride is gonna avalanche and that's going to complicate the overall picture. However, if you do find the right combination of terrain that remained intact during the big midweek storm, then add the additional weight of a rider to the slope, all you need to do is collapse the slope... whoomph... and you'll be staring down the barrel of a very dangerous avalanche similar to this slide in Upper Weber Canyon triggered on Christmas Eve. If you're caught in one of these monsters the best case scenario is you're buried under feet of bone crushing snow and now the race is on for your partners to find you. Worst case scenario is you're beatened to death by trauma. In either case, both options suck. But fortunately, life has more than two options and this weekend you can have a blast by simply avoiding steep slopes altogether and sticking to low angle, wind sheltered terrain.

type

aspect/elevation

characteristics

LIKELIHOOD

LIKELY

UNLIKELY

SIZE

LARGE

SMALL

TREND

INCREASING DANGER

SAME

DECREASING DANGER

over the next 24 hours

description

Winds have been busy at work overnight, blowing lots of light density snow around, and forming drifts sensitive to the additional weight of a rider. Today's shallow slabs will predictably break at or below your skis, board, or sled and are generally manageable in size. But don't get lured into thinking this is the only avalanche dragon we're dealing with today. Remember- we've gotta think not only about the snow we're riding in, but also the snow we're riding on. And deeper in the snowpack, yeah, that's where the rubber meets the road. Prior to the big Solstice storm, our snowpack was a weak sugary mess. In just a couple of days we've added a tremendous amount of dense, wind driven, water laden snow, ontop of a fragile, shaky foundation. You probably wouldn't build your house on a structure like this and I'm sure not gonna bet my life on it.

So here's the deal... much of the range slid naturally and there's reports of avalanches everywhere and that's good news. The bad news is, many slopes still hang in the balance waiting for a trigger like us to come along and tip the scales. Now comes the tricky part. You can probably ride plenty of steep slopes and not trigger a slide and think you're good to go. However, since it's pretty much been snowing and blowing all week, it'll gonna be hard to tell what slopes are intact and which have already avalanched. Unless you've got a keen eye or you've been carefully tracking a certain zone, your safest bet is to simply avoid steep slopes altogether.

Not every slope you ride is gonna avalanche and that's going to complicate the overall picture. However, if you do find the right combination of terrain that remained intact during the big midweek storm, then add the additional weight of a rider to the slope, all you need to do is collapse the slope... whoomph... and you'll be staring down the barrel of a very dangerous avalanche similar to this slide in Upper Weber Canyon triggered on Christmas Eve. If you're caught in one of these monsters the best case scenario is you're buried under feet of bone crushing snow and now the race is on for your partners to find you. Worst case scenario is you're beatened to death by trauma. In either case, both options suck. But fortunately, life has more than two options and this weekend you can have a blast by simply avoiding steep slopes altogether and sticking to low angle, wind sheltered terrain.

weather

It'll be sunny, but quite cold today with high temperatures only reaching into the low teens. North and northeast winds blow in the 20's and 30's along the ridges, with a few gusts in the 40's along the highest peaks. Overnight lows dip to negative territory with lows near -10 degrees. Sunday brings clear skies with a slight warming trend developing. A weak storm system or two clips the state late Monday and Tuesday, but I don't expect much in the way of accumulating snow, maybe a few inches, before high pressure builds for the mid to latter half of the week.

general announcements

Remember your information can save lives. If you see anything we should know about, please participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can call me directly at 801-231-2170, email [email protected], or email by clicking HERE

This is a great time of year to schedule a free avalanche awareness presentation for your group or club. You can contact me at 801-231-2170 or email [email protected]. To register for the first in our series of on-the-snow sled specific classes you can register here.

The information in this advisory is from the US Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time posted, but be will be updated by 7:00 AM on Sunday, December 27th by Craig Gordon.

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