Wasatch
Cache National Forest
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Avalanche advisory
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2002 07:30 AM
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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
With clear skies overnight,
ridge top temperatures are around 5 degrees this morning and winds have picked
up and it’s blowing around 20-25 mph from the west. There’s about a foot of delightful powder from
Saturday night with some relatively thin sun crusts on the surface on south
facing slopes.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday a group of
backcountry skiers triggered a very large slide on what is known as the “Cabin
Run” on the north side of Gobbler’s Knob in
The kind of places where
people have been triggering avalanches these past few days are usually thin
snowpack areas—usually less than about 4 feet deep—that are underlain by weak,
depth hoar. Although many of these slopes
slid during last week’s storm many are still hanging in the balance, just
waiting for a trigger. This kind of
instability is notorious for being frustratingly persistent, not giving any of
the classic signs of instability such as collapsing or cracking. They are difficult to detect with
snowpits. They can often have a number
of other tracks on them. They break deep
and large. Once it goes, it takes out
the entire slope and most of them are unsurvivable. In other words, it’s your basic nightmare. The bottom line is that you should continue
to be patient and avoid any slope approaching 35 degrees or steeper that did
not slide during the last storm. If you
insist on getting onto something steep, the hot tip is to go to one of the many
slopes that did slide big in the last storm because they are now very safe and
they are covered with about a foot of nice powder, which smoothes out the old
debris. For a list of what has slid
during the past week, call our more detailed report at 364-1591. Finally, today as the wind increases, watch
out for the usual round of wind slabs that form on lee, wind exposed terrain.
Bottom Line:
So what danger rating do you call this kind of
instability? In this case, the usual
definitions don’t work very well. Yes,
there are only localized places where you can still trigger an avalanche, which
we would call a MODERATE
danger but if you do trigger one, it will be very large and probably
unsurviable. Traditionally thinner
snowpack areas, such as on the periphery of the
(
(
The avalanche danger in the
(
MODERATE Danger.
Mountain Weather:
Today we have
some mid and high level moisture crossing
General Information:
Wasatch
Powderbird Guides will be flying in
To
report backcountry snow and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or
trigger an avalanche, you can leave a message at (801) 524-5304 or
1-800-662-4140. Or you can e-mail an
observation to [email protected], or you can fax an observation to 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
will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
For
more detailed weather information go to our Mountain Weather Advisory
National Weather
Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: