Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Uintas Area Mountains Issued by Craig Gordon for Sunday - January 15, 2017 - 4:14am
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While making up a small portion of the terrain available to ride in today, pockets of CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger exist, particularly in the wind zone, at and above treeline. Human triggered avalanches are LIKELY on steep, wind drifted slopes, especially those facing the north half of the compass, and particularly those with an easterly component to their aspect.

You'll find a MODERATE avalanche danger on steep wind drifted slopes at mid elevations and human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE.

Wind sheltered mid and lower elevation terrain offers green light conditions and in general, a LOW avalanche danger.




special announcement

Our preliminary accident report from the close call in Smith-Moorehouse is posted and can be found here.

Also... in a show of Herculean strength, Trace Carrillo installed the Beacon Basin training park at Nobletts Trailhead yesterday. I encourage everyone to stop by, practice with your avalanche rescue gear, and if you bump into Trace give him a big high-five... yo :)

current conditions

Above the valley muck, skies are clear and temperatures in the mid teens. It's calm even along the high ridges where winds are blowing just 5-10 mph. Most of the popular riding areas got loved to death yesterday, so you'll have to think a little out of the box. But with a little cerebral weight lifting, you'll be rewarded with five star riding and turning conditions. The beauty of all this light, surfy snow is you can have a blast on low angle, mid and low elevation slopes, where the snow is deep and avalanche danger predictable.

We haven't seen this type of snow depth on the south half of the range in nearly a decade! Huge thanks to Tyler St. Jeor for helping the dig out and maintain the Currant Creek snow depth sensor, seen completely buried here.

Real time wind, snow, and temperatures for the Uinta's are found here

Ted was in the Whitney Basin yesterday and found mostly stable snow and very good riding conditions. More on his travels found here.

Additional snowpack observations and trip reports are found here.

recent activity

Not a huge slope by Uinta standards, but a couple riders were able to trigger an avalanche on this slope near Strawberry, which broke to weak snow near the ground. One rider was partially buried and his sled completely buried. Fortunately, no ne is injured and all is good at the end of the day.

A full list of recent Uinta avalanche activity is found here.

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

Since the beginning of the New Year we've nearly doubled our snowpack and added over 7" of water weight... unprecedented for our hood. Until this week, avalanche conditions have been pretty straight-forward, but I think Tuesday nights storm sent the region into a tailspin and the western Uinta's experienced a remarkable, tree snapping, natural avalanche cycle. The carnage is jaw dropping with plenty of slopes reaching their historic potential. The good news is, many slopes avalanched naturally and in general, the snowpack is adjusting to the big storm and getting comfortable in its own skin. However, I bet there's a couple surprises still lurking out there. Complicating the pattern is you can ride lots of steep slopes without incident and think you're good to go because the snow feels strong and bomber under our skis, board, or sled. So here's the problem... we've got dense, cohesive snow resting on a thin layer layer of weak snow formed right before the New Year. All we need to do is find a weaknesses in the slab, collapse that slope, and now we're staring down the barrel of a very dangerous avalanche. With all the great riding options today, there's no reason to pull on the dogs tail. It doesn't mean you can't get after it. It does mean that by simply toning things down a notch or two and avoiding steep, wind drifted slopes, we can still have a great day of riding and come home safely to our families.


An avalanche peeling off the North facing Moffit Chutes was packing heat when it blasted over this bench, splashing mature timber onto the uphill slope across canyon. (St. Jeor and Scroggin photos)


A few of the natural slides seen here in Upper Weber Canyon. Common theme with all the activity we're seeing is avalanches are very connected, breaking 3'-5' deep, entraining a large volume of snow, running long distances, and snapping mature timber as they crash down the slope.

weather

High pressure is building and for the next couple of days we can expect mostly sunny skies, light winds, and temperatures warming into the mid 30's. Looks like we return to a stormy pattern late in the week, but right now timing is uncertain.

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]

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 will be updated by 7:00 AM on Monday January 16th.