This is Janet Kellam of the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center with your Backcountry Avalanche Advisory and Weather Forecast for Saturday, February 2, 2008 at 7:30 am. The Sawtooth Society in partnership with Idaho's SNRA Mountain Goat license plate program & the Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center bring you this advisory. Special Announcement: The Last Night! The Friends of the Avalanche Center is hosting the Banff Film Festival and their World's Greatest raffle at the NexStage theater on Main Street Ketchum. Doors open at 6PM. Food and beverages will be available in the lobby. Film List: http://www.sawtoothavalanche.com/banff_film_list.doc Today is our last Avalanche Awareness Week Program: 1:00PM a free Avalanche Beacon Training Clinic at the Beacon Park on Sun Valley Road. Bring your avalanche transceiver, probes, snowshoes or backcountry skis & skins and dress warmly. Bottom Line: Today the avalanche danger is estimated to be CONSIDERABLE in the Central and South Wood River Valley and southern portions of our advisory area. Human triggered avalanches continue to be likely in steep terrain. Large avalanches are possible in this region. In the North Valley, Sawtooth Mountains and areas that have had a deeper snowpack all season, CONSIDERABLE danger exists in steep wind affected areas with caution urged in sheltered rocky terrain. MODERATE danger exists on other sheltered slopes. Outlook: A winter storm accompanied by strong southerly winds is forecast for this afternoon into tomorrow. Expect ongoing concerns for avalanche conditions. Primary Avalanche Concern: PBWL: We continue to be plagued by a weak and unsupportive base layer in any region that had a shallower snowpack before our January storms. Weve received 2 to 3 feet of snow just in the past week. Several slides were reported from the Fish Creek area and southern Pioneer Mtns breaking as wide as 600feet across. Yesterday, a new slide popped out behind the homes in Glassford Heights just north of Ketchum. These natural slides consist of our January snow failing on the weak, rotten base layers. All steep slopes with this condition should be considered unstable and slopes with extra wind drifted snow will be the most susceptible to human triggers today. Your best tool with these conditions is to travel and play on lower angle slopes and to not get directly beneath any steep slopes as they may be triggered from the flats once the weak underlying snow collapses. Areas that have had a generally deeper snowpack all season are not as bad off. The recent snowfall still needs some time to stabilize, but most natural slides yesterday in these regions consisted of shallow wind slabs and storm shears in the top layers of the snowpack. Some very high elevation slopes in the wind hammered Boulder Mountains appeared to have released larger, wind loaded areas. But of note, we continue to see planar shears and mixed stability tests on an old interface buried by our last two storms, now approximately 2 feet deep. I had a fairly large collapse on a southwest facing slope off of Galena Summit yesterday. Digging down, I found about 2 feet of newer snow sitting on older, faceted snow. Compression Tests gave varied results, but a Rutschblock cleanly popped out while I was initially stepping onto it. A more northerly aspect gave me more stable results. The bottom line-keep evaluating stability on a case by case basis as different slopes and areas can vary. Secondary Avalanche Concern: Wind slabs and wind drifted slopes may break out quite deep in areas with very weak snow. They will tend to be shallower in the more northern, deeper snowpack sector. Yesterday in the Galena Summit area soft wind slabs of various thickness of new snow were sensitive, cracking with the weight of a skier. The wind was not nearly as strong as prior storms but did blow out of the west and northwest throughout the day, transporting snow and filling in tracks along exposed slopes and ridgelines. Continue to watch for fresh, sensitive wind deposits today. Current Conditions: Sheltered slopes offer very good to excellent powder conditions. For powder snobs- a number of areas do have a slightly grabby density change about 8 to 12 inches deep so the vote is for slightly less than perfect powder. Although exposed slopes do have some wind effects with varying densities and sculpting of surface snow, the wind was kinder to us this time. Winds shifted from the northwest to the southwest overnight and are currently very light. Yesterday wind speeds averaged in the teens and gusted near 30mph with stronger winds along the Camas Prairie. Temperatures again have cooled down, all locations reporting in the single digits. Mountain Weather Forecast: Expect wind speeds to pick up from the southwest, shifting more southerly as yet another storm enters our region. Only light snowfall is expected today, but by this evening we should have at least a couple inches of new snow with 3 to 6 inches forecast for overnight and a few more inches on Sunday. Temperatures will stay in the single digits at 10,000ft, the low teens on Baldy and will rise to around 20 degrees on the valley floor today. Cold temperatures again tonight, 6 to 16 degrees in all locations. Tip for the day: We could not get to this great snow without the hard work of the city, county and state road crews. They've worked long, hard and sometimes dangerous hours to deal with all these storms. They deserve a big thank you from all of us.