Wasatch Conditions 09-10

Yeah Pondo. After a morning of watching the touroneain sheep ride the bullwheel around and search for lost skis, not quite as amusing when it's your wifes ski;). I'm just stoked to have a pen to get out to. All I can add to powder ponds obs would be S. facing Highway to Heaven and Michigan City
where begining to set/thicken up by 3 and the powder turds were hitting West bowl and Days fork hard:fuckyou:
A little more Silver stoke cause that place sucks
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...um/sfb2192.jpg

We had a great day at Toledo Bowl across from Alta yesterday. Unfortunately one person in our group had a bag he stashed at the top of the skin track disappear. Someone might have mistakenly thought it was left behind (it was a bit of clothes, etc. in a stuff sack).
In any case, any info that might help it return to its owner would be greatly appreciated (can PM me or reply here).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by powdherb

This was yesterday. Foolishly, I didn't bring googles. Neither did Tyler. Unfortunately we never emerged from the white room.

---

Ya skiing without goggles sucks. Except for that part in the video when I have goggles on...

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s/SAM_0514.jpg
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s/SAM_0525.jpg

south facing in the town of alta new years eve. im really glad we arent professional photographers/skiers and we ski more than one turn at a time. it makes the whole face shot thing alot more fun when it happens for 20 seconds at a time. we saw some beaters in rocky point doing the one turn photography shenanegans :fmicon: just kidddddinnnnnggggg. but really, ski to the bottom. what a day....again

Far, far from the sheep pen today so my obs probably don't matter to anyone but it was still the Wasatch. Travel was from 5500 to 9000 feet. Good snow on the north facing slopes out of the wind, ridgelines were getting hammered at 1pm and making a dense layer. Other aspects had a bit of a density inversion from the warm temps yesterday but still skied pretty well. Noticed a lot of settling in the low elevation flats but no instabilities to speak of on the higher slopes.

I'm stoked now that I've had my first real day out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by smuggs

im really glad we arent professional photographers/skiers and we ski more than one turn at a time.

---

Quoted for truth.:biggrin:

Skied a few laps up in the Argenta headwall with PowderPonds.
Still large collapseing noted on several occasions mostly on the 1st steep pitch and flats before headwall.
Ski cut released a wind slab running on old solid irregual bed surface, was below taking pictures in a decent but not ideal position. The tree I was behind deflected most of it and skier skied out with alert from wife;)
Good safety reminder.
Slight rhime crust above 9k and blustery sustained winds at ridgeline.
Took a stump to the thigh down low on exit as another turn it down a notch reminder.
Have a safe 2010 wasatch mags.

SKIED THE PC/BCC RIDGELINE...WIND WAS WHIPPING FOR MOST OF THE MORNING. A DENSER/TOUGH SNOW WAS VERY EVIDENT. SKIED UP TO 40 DEGREE SLOPES WITH NO DEEP INSTABILITIES. HOWEVER, IF THE WIND CONTINUES THE DENSER SNOW COULD RUN ON THE LIGHT AND FLUFFY IT BURIED...

a few pics from the hallway couloir from this afternoon (skier is undertheradar):


gut:
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/f...g?t=1262479558

exit (a little bony):
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/f...g?t=1262479633

a little crusty gettin in but turns were soft in the gut. 2-3" slab that sloughed a little but managable. found some suprisingly creamy turns on our exit back into lcc (gully lookers left of hellgate cliffs??)

Lapped Tigertail and the trees off Red Lens. The snow was fresh and deep.

Anyone surprised to see Tremper call everything depth hoar related Moderate today? I was. Things are certainly rounding but... Moderate X maybe.

[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/8521595"]Untitled on Vimeo[/ame]

some shots in grizzly from friday and saturday.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RideTheZenith

Anyone surprised to see Tremper call everything depth hoar related Moderate today? I was. Things are certainly rounding but... Moderate X maybe.

---

It'd be nice if the UAC offered a product that showed the 7-day trend of the danger rose.

Lots of slopes got centerpunched the last two days and in a few places the snow moved so I guess Tremper called it right. "moderate" = "human triggered avalanches are possible"

This north face and north east face don't have enough snow to ski safely yet. Some isolate, small wind loaded areas, otherwise stable on the up.
http://fritzrips.com/Gallery1/albums...n/DSCF0786.jpg

East aspect was better filled in, no rocks, no instabilities except minor sluffing in the top few inches.
http://fritzrips.com/Gallery1/albums...n/DSCF0795.jpg

Skied well. Surprised nobody had skied it yet.
http://fritzrips.com/Gallery1/albums...n/DSCF0797.jpg

Darn. Was thinking about that one for tomorrow or Wednesday. Beat me to it. Nice. :cool:

http://fritzrips.com/Gallery1/albums...n/DSCF0795.jpg

Now that is an aesthetic photo!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Gnarwhale

It'd be nice if the UAC offered a product that showed the 7-day trend of the danger rose.

---

Whipped this up today:
http://utahclimbers.com/misc/avy7.php

Might be nice if it had a horizontal 7 day trend, hmmm.

If the avy center changes their HTML it will get fubared, also if anybody wants my shoddy php feel free to PM.

Gnarwhale - nice to meet you over the weekend, good job on your first AIARE teaching gig, I know I learned a lot.....

EDIT: 9 day rose table here:
http://utahclimbers.com/misc/avy9daytable.php

Woah, thanks putting that together. Linked. And nice to meet you too.

Went up here today. Needs more snow. It's not as filled as it looks in the photo. Seriously.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ldGrowth-2.jpg

Sheltered upper elevation trees are holding the best snow. Found a variety of zipper crusts on E and W slopes away from the trees.

couple laps over on davenport in grizzly yesterday, snow was surprisingly good and not as sun effected as I expected. SW aspects only had 2 to 2 1/2 feet of snow on them with a sun crust layer 6 inches down and a 2-4 inches of large facets on the bottom. Compression tests presented no failures on either the sun crust layer or the weak facets as we had expected but those weak bottom layers showed poor bonding and could produce some potential hazards if we get another big dump. All and all a pretty good day of skiing and well worth the climb.
-T

1/4/10. A fine morning on the west face of Timp. Wind effect in some areas but plenty of pow found. No instability noticed.

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...8/timpmark.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sh4ft

9 day rose table here:
http://utahclimbers.com/misc/avy9daytable.php

---

That is glorious. Strong work. Everyone should bookmark that thing.

7700 to 10200 travel this morning. Got turned back from the objective right at the end due to white out conditions and a wind slab that formed fast on unsheltered NW, N, NE aspects. Got some cracks to form on ski cuts, but propagation was limited to several feet and nothing slid or sluffed. Still was a bit spooked. Better to bail and try come back another day.

No stokage. Couldn't see shit.

The dense new snow was skiing well- fast and carvy turns. Sent some cornices from the top to the bottom but wasnt able to pry a slab loose. Other than popping out a ski length windslab of new snow on south aspect crust, nothing was moving.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...b/P1080717.jpg

There were apparently some rescue drills being performed by the life flight heli's in Silver Fork. I was worried something big had happened we noticed not one but two heli's circling. They continued taking off and landing into the afternoon, by which point we'd deduced there likely wasnt a massive accident nearby.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Gnarwhale

There were apparently some rescue drills being performed by the life flight heli's in Silver Fork. I was worried something big had happened we noticed not one but two heli's circling. They continued taking off and landing into the afternoon, by which point we'd deduced there likely wasnt a massive accident nearby.

---

We'd concluded that they just wanted to watch Dwyer ski:

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._1545897_n.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Gnarwhale

The dense new snow was skiing well- fast and carvy turns. Sent some cornices from the top to the bottom but wasnt able to pry a slab loose.

---

Good to hear. N-facing?

Quote:

---

There were apparently some rescue drills being performed by the life flight heli's in Silver Fork. I was worried something big had happened we noticed not one but two heli's circling. They continued taking off and landing into the afternoon, by which point we'd deduced there likely wasnt a massive accident nearby.

---

Also good to hear. Saw them buzzing past earlier.