*** BACKCOUNTRY AVALANCHE AND MOUNTAIN WEATHER BULLETIN *** Good afternoon, this is Seth shaw with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Forecast Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather bulletin. This is Sunday, January 11 and it's 4:30 pm. This information is brought to you in part by a generous donation to the FUAFC from Kirkham's Outdoor Products, the backcountry specialists with an outstanding selection of x-c skis, snowshoes and demos. Bottom Line: Ogden and Provo: Extreme danger, spontaneous avalanches expected. SL and Park City: High danger of human triggered avalanches especially in steep, wind affected terrain. Current conditions: Storm totals for yesterday and last night are 19 inches at sundance with 2 inches of water weight, 12" at aspen grove at 6,900' with 1" water, 15" at Park City, 10" at the Canyons, 9" at Deer Valley, 17" at brighton, 12" at silver lake, 11" at spruces, and 6" at 6,700" in BCC. The UDOT site in LCC had 13 inches with 1.2 water weight as of 4:00. Beaver mtn in Logan canyon is reporting 15" storm total. 18" at snowbasin with 2.25 water with 16 of that coming in the last 12 hrs, then another 2 to 3" today. An automated site at 7,800' on Ben Lomand near Ogden is showing 21 inches of snow and 4.7" water equivalent in the past 24 hrs before 6:00 this morning, that large water weight is probably due to graupel drifting onto the site. I've lost access to that site but they probably also picked up an adhesional couple of inches today. The cat drivers at snowbasin said the drifts were the size of there snowcats this morning. The winds are very strong in the Ogden area mountains with Mt Ogden averaging 50 mph all day, Sundance showed a steady 25 mph. The salt lake mountains were a little calmer but there was still moderate to strong SW winds that caused several natural avalanches to release. First I'll give the hazard then talk about avalanches I heard about around the range. Avalanche conditions: There is an avalanche warning in effect for the Ogden and Provo mtns with natural deep slab releases likely. The Salt Lake and Park City mountains have a high danger today and will probably have an extreme danger by tomorrow with more snow and wind expected tonight. People traveling in the backcountry tomorrow should avoid terrain steeper than 30 degrees, stay out of avalanche run out zones and stay out of steep sided gulleys. The weight of the new snow and wind drifted snow could easily over burden the weak pre existing snowpack, resulting in large deep slab avalanches. Areas outside the Little Cottonwood perimetersuch as the Park C ity mountains and Mill Creek canyon will be more dangerous because the pre existing pack is shallower and weaker. Here are the more significant slides I heard about: I'll start in the north and work my way south. At snowbasin there were 2 climax slides in out of bounds terrain both in ge nerally east facing bowls above tree line. One went naturally last night and the other sympathetic to an avila uncher shot. Other control work at snowbasin released many 2 to 3 foot deep slides that pulled out some of the old snow down to a crust but left the faceted snow and crust in place as a future menace. On the south face of Litt le Superior two snowboarders triggered several slides up to 3' deep, one of them rode one for a couple of hundred fee t getting out of it before it crashed through a narrow rock choke and over cliffs. This was enough to sympatheti c the main chute on Superior 1/4 mile away, that slidgh out the wasatch in the 1 to 2' range that involved new snow only. They were most common on north through east aspec ts steeper than 35 degrees. By the way the new snow is inverted and slabby with a lot of graupel so it is n ot the greatest for turning. Mountain Weather: Tonight another foot of snow with strong wind is expected. Monday there wi ll probably be a break in the action after noon then another storm for monday night into tuesday. For more detailed information call 364-1591. -To find out where the Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be skiing and to get thei r schedule, call 521-6040 x 5280. -Comments on the scoping notice analyzing the impacts of issuing a new 5-year permit to WPG need to be received by the SL Ranger District by Jan 30, 1998. *** If you get into the mountains give us a call and let us know what your seeing out there. Our office number is 524- 5304 or 1-800-662-4140. The information contained in this bulletin is from the U.S. Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content. This information describes general avalanche conditions, local variat ions always occur. I will update this bulletin by 7:30 on Monday morning. Thanks for calling. Shaw