Saturday, March 06, 2004, 7:30 am Good morning, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Saturday, March 06, 2004, and its 7:30 a.m. Current Conditions: If you took my advice yesterday and called in sick for work but are planning to make up the time today, it was probably a good call. Overnight, the winds have been blowing from the west with hourly averages of 25-40 with gusts into the 50 and the only good powder left is probably in the mid to lower elevation, very wind sheltered areas. Ridge top temperatures have warmed up into the low 20s. Avalanche Conditions: Today it may be cloudy, windy and poor turning and riding conditions, but at least the avalanche danger has dramatically increased. Even with yesterdays moderate avalanche danger, there was still a couple skiers that triggered avalanches on Little Superior and one lost some equipment. These were either new wind slabs or density inversions in the new snow around a foot deep and around 100 feet wide. There was also some snowboarders hucking off a jump on a steep slope above the road at Alta and their jump was buried by a large sluff. Also, control work in upper Little Cottonwood Canyon produced a deep avalanche into old, faceted snow 4-5 feet deep and 100 feet wide in the kind of steep, shallow rocky area that we have been talking about all week. Today, though, the wind is the big news. Wind not only rapidly deposits snow onto lee slopes, but the snow it does deposit is dense, heavy and easily propagates a fracture. Theres no end of light density snow underneath these wind slabs, which will provide the weak layer, and under that, theres a variety of slick sun crusts will provide the perfect bed surface. You can expect sensitive, both soft and hard slab avalanches on any slope around 35 degrees or steeper with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. Some of the thicker wind drifts may feel a little stubborn until you get well out on them and they will break up above you. Today would be a great day to learn about avalanches. Go to a little test slope, say a 10 foot high road cut, that has recent wind drifts and jump on them to make little avalanches. But whatever you do, dont learn about them the hard way on big, dangerous slopes. You can recognize wind slabs by their smooth, rounded shape, and they often feel slabby and sound hollow like a drum. Finally, the winds are strong, so you will probably find wind deposits lower on the slopes than usual and in unusual places. Bottom Line for the Wasatch Range, including the Salt Lake, Park City, PROVO AND OGDEN AREA MOUNTAINS: Theres a wide variety of avalanche dangers out there depending on the kind of terrain you choose. The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE on all slopes steeper than 35 degrees with recent deposits of wind drifted snow, which you will find on all but the most wind sheltered slopes. Theres a HIGH danger on any steep slope with deposits of wind drifted snow thicker than about 2 feet. There is a MODERATE danger on any steep slopes without recent wind drifts. If you want LOW danger terrain today, stay on slopes less than 30 degrees without steeper slopes above it, which has not been wind drifted. Logan: click HERE or call 435-797-4146 Mountain Weather: The cold front is slowly sagging southward, which gave 4 inches of new snow to the Logan area mountains overnight. The strongest winds should blow around sunrise this morning with hourly averages of around 40 with gusts to around 55 on the exposed ridges. Ridge top winds should turn from southwest to northwest throughout the day and wind speeds should finally diminish by this afternoon. We should have cloudy skies with light snow showers and ridge top temperatures around 20 degrees and around 30 degrees down at 8,000. On Sunday, we should have decreasing clouds and light winds with temperatures beginning the big warm up into the first half of the week. By Tuesday, ridge top temperatures will be around freezing with 8,000 temperatures in the mid to upper 40s. 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. Drew Hardesty will update this advisory Sunday morning.