Wasatch Cache National Forest
In partnership with: Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and Salt Lake County.

“keeping you on top”

AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Sunday, January 14, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Sunday, January 14, 2007 and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:

It’s like that FAR SIDE cartoon where the Eskimo gal with the bouffant hairdo and horn-rim glasses on goes outside the igloo in the morning for the spot weather now-cast and say’s ‘Yep, it’s still cold’. Mountain temps are even colder than yesterday with most stations near and below ten degrees BELOW zero. The northerly winds remain light except for a few hours at 20mph with gusts near 30 along the highest elevations. Riding conditions are best on smooth, lower angled slopes and a bit scratchy and variable under the 6-8” from the Thursday/Thursday night storm.

Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:

All was generally quiet except for continued sluffing in the ever-weakening low density snow. The point releases have not been aspect dependent, but need to be on slopes approaching 40 degrees. They’re quite manageable if you move across the slope and from sub-ridge to sub-ridge to allow the loose snow to move through. They’ll take on a different mood, however, if you’re caught and knocked off your feet or machine and carried over cliffs, through a stand of trees and then buried in a steep-walled terrain trap. It’s still worth having good communication with your partners, moving through steep terrain one-at-a-time, and getting out of the way at the bottom.

Those traveling today along the highest ridgelines should watch for a few shallow new drifts primarily on the southerly aspects. The Ogden and Provo mountains may still have a few lingering wind drifts from Friday’s stronger winds.

Bottom Line for the Salt Lake, Park City, Provo and Ogden area mountains:

Today the avalanche danger is generally LOW with a pockety MODERATE danger posed by loose snow avalanches and the odd wind pocket more prevalent outside of the central Wasatch.

Mountain Weather:

We’ll have clear to partly cloudy skies with 8000’ and 10,000’ highs today in the single digits and near zero. The northerly winds should remain less than 20mph or so. A warming trend follows the nose of a quickly building ridge for early in the week, with (you’ll never guess), a weak splitting system that closes off to the south by late in the week.

Announcements:

Yesterday, the Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in Cardiff and the Bountiful Sessions. Today, they’ll be in AF, Snake Creek, and along the Cascade Ridgeline above Provo. If you have questions regarding their areas of operation you can contact them at 742-2800.

Listen to the advisory. Try our new streaming audio or podcasts

Our new, state wide tollfree hotline is 1-888-999-4019.
(For early morning detailed avalanche activity report hit option 8)

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We appreciate any snowpack and avalanche observations you have, so please leave us a message at (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at [email protected]. (Fax 801-524-6301)

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 7:30 on Monday morning, and thanks for calling.