*** BACKCOUNTRY AVALANCHE AND MOUNTAIN WEATHER BULLETIN ***

Hello,  this is the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Forecast Center and
we  have quit issuing our  avalanche bulletins for  the season.  This
doesn t mean there won t be any  more avalanches.  It just means that
we operate on limited budget and we have to draw the line somewhere.

But  if  you  are  heading  out  into  the  backcountry you  can  get
information  to  help  you  make  your  avalanche  decisions  in  the
following places:

If  you have  access to  the Internet,  you should  always check  the
National  Weather Service  home  page in  Utah  because you  can  get
information from  many of  the automated  mountain stations  that are
still running this late  in the year.  Snowbird,  for instance, stays
open  longer than  most of the  resorts and  you can  get wind speed,
direction  and temperature from Hidden Peak and also new snow amounts
from the Gad Valley  station.  From that same  page you can view  all
the SNOTEL sites in Utah and find out snow depths and new snow depths
at  many of these  sites that we  have installed snow  depth sensors.
That address is:
http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/Saltlake/
or  if you can t  remember that, you  will find a  link to it  on the
Westwide Avalanche Network site at
www.csac.org

Second, everyone  should listen to NOAA weather radio.  You can buy a
little handheld unit at most any store such as Radio  Shack for about
$10.  And you  can access the continuous loop of  weather information
that repeats itself about every 4 minutes.  I seldom go a day without
listening to it.

As  far as  avalanche conditions  in spring,  there's usually  only a
couple  things you  need to worry  about.   First, of  course, is wet
slides.  And the one thing you need to remember is to stay off of and
out from under  steep slopes when  you re sinking in, say,  past your
ankles in wet snow as  you walk on foot.  Get out early  and get home
early.  You can often start on the east  facing slopes in the morning
when they first soften up in the sun.  Then follow the sun around the
compass throughout the day, and move to south facing slopes after the
east facing  ones get too  mushy, then finally to  west facing slopes
after the  all the others  get mushy.   The whole  process should  be
finished by  about 11:00  in the  morning.  Also,  remember that  any
track you leave  in the wet mush will freeze  up into the consistency
of a concrete traffic barrier the next morning, which is a rude thing
to do to all the other skiers, boarders and snowmobilers out there.

Then, finally,  every time it snows and  we might get quite  a bit of
snow this  spring you need  to worry  about all  the  usual dry  snow
avalanche  conditions, wind  slabs  being the  biggest  concern.   As
you ve heard us say  a million times, avoid steep slopes  with recent
deposits of wind blown  snow.  Also, when the fresh snow  warms up in
the heat of the  sun for the first time, it  sluffs easily, much more
easily than old, mature corn snow underneath.

Well, that's about  it from here.  I will be  in the office on a very
intermittent basis  this spring  gathering data for  various reports.
So you can still leave a message on our answer machine at 524-5304.
Thanks for a wonderful  and relatively safe season and  we ll talk to
you again in November.

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 variations
always occur.

Tremper