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Guest essay by long time avalanche professional Pete Earle - I’ve been lucky to get out in the Wasatch quite a bit over the past month or so, between teaching a few avalanche courses and touring for myself. Thus far, I’ve been impressed with the backcountry community’s ability to choose appropriate terrain based on our current avalanche problem. I haven’t seen large slopes get center-punched, and folks are mostly keeping slope angles mellow and seem to be stepping into terrain thoughtfully. My fear going forward is similar to what we’ve seen during …

Building a house of cards… Fall and early winter of the 2020-2021 season has been marked by several relatively small early season storms. Drought persists with the snowpack in the La Sals at 19% of median as of 12/23/2020. Currently, there is 0.8” of snow water equivalent (SWE) at the SNOWTEL site. While this site sits at a relativity low elevation, it does provide a good record of snowfall events and temperature trends. The first storm occurred on October 25th and deposited around 1” of SWE equating to 7” of snow at the La Sal Mtn SNOWTEL site (9,578’ elevation). …

Our Week in Review highlights significant snowfall, weather, and avalanche events of the previous week. (Review the archived forecasts for the Salt Lake mountains.) The danger roses for the Salt Lake mountains from Friday, December, 18 through Thursday, December 24: Summary: A very active week with over 30 natural and human-triggered avalanches reported to the UAC. Snow/Water totals for the week: Upper LCC: 27-31"/1.8" Upper BCC: 15-20"/1.1-1.3" Park City Ridgeline: 14"/1.1" Storm and wind-driven snow fell on a faceted (weak) …

As more and more snowmobilers are finding their way into avalanche terrain, manufacturers are stepping up to make sure their customers know how to stay safe and make good decisions. Ski-Doo has created a series of videos that offer users free avalanche awareness lessons on topics ranging from avalanche transceiver use and rescue to safe travel protocols to terrain management. These information packed videos are a great place to start your avalanche education or brush up on your skills. Visit Ski-Doo to watch the videos and enhance your avalanche knowledge.

The second episode is a conversation on risk, public safety messaging, and resilience—not with an avy pro, but with Utah state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn. Dr. Dunn has been at the forefront with the fight against Covid-19 in Utah and knows a bit about the bottom line, vulnerability, and exposure. Dr. Angela Dunn is the State Epidemiologist for the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) where she works across the Department to identify and address health concerns of Utahns, with a focus on health equity and data modernization. She came to UDOH as an Epidemic Intelligence …