Avalanche forecast

Salt River and Wyoming Ranges

Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Sun
Alpine
1 · Low
Treeline
1 · Low
Below
No rating
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Out of date — this forecast expired 3 years ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

Avalanche conditions are generally safe, but the possibility remains of triggering an avalanche on weak snow around 1-3 feet deep. You will most likely encounter these areas on shady slopes at upper elevations. The Greys Zone has a high degree of variability in snow cover and depth, each of which factors into the avalanche problem. Utilize caution and continue safe travel practices.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely
    Size
    1–2

    From what I've seen, the snowpack at low to middle-elevation sections of the eastern side of the Wyoming Range, the Palisade and Snake River Ranges, the Salt, and the Hoback is ~1-2 feet totalin depth and is mainly comprised of weak, faceted snow and crusts with no real slab potential. Slopes above 9,000 feet in the Salt, the western side of the Wyoming Range, and the more central sections of the Palisade and Snake hold ~3-foot snowpack, much of which is weak snow and crusts with a significant enough slab to warrant caution for the above concern. Slabs 1 to 3 feet thick exist over several persistent weak layers in the snowpack in some locations. This problem has been most common on slopes on the north half of the compass (W-N-E) at upper elevations. Warm and dry conditions last week gave these weak layers time to rest, but they did not magically disappear.

    You are most likely to find trouble on shady, unsupported slopes. Consider the consequences of low coverage in even a small avalanche. Yesterday in the Hoback, one of the highest hazards was accessing terrain with low coverage and plenty of rocks and trees to hit. Continue to trench your sled track or dig into the snow to see if the weak structure exists where you are riding. 

    Low-tide conditions looking into the head of the basin behind Beaver Mountain in the Hoback.

    Photo: Gabrielle Antonioli

Avalanche Discussion

When moving in the snowpacks in different areas of this zone, I like to hedge my perceptions in cold hard data. Lately, this data has been hard to come by, taking the form of too many rocks and trees, and figuring out where there is an actual snowpack versus what I'd like to call a "no-pack" this season. Even with trends of persistent instabilities tapering in many locations, checking the snowpack before committing to steeper terrain (especially on aspects that have highlighted themselves as concerning in the past) is the only way to assess the above problem at low hazard. You have to dig in (literally and figuratively) to trend your perception towards the reality of what is happening with the snow in a given location. With our current conditions, the places where you could trigger an avalanche on a persistent layer are becoming increasingly isolated. But it's not a free-for-all; here are some tips for dealing with the current hazard:

  • Read the forecast to understand where there are still avalanche concerns. LOW danger is "Watching for unstable snow on isolated terrain features." So, continue to do just that.
  • Evaluate terrain carefully, and never stop paying attention to consequences. If you're considering riding a slope where triggering a slide would likely be fatal and push you into the numerous exposed hazards currently (rocks, stumps) OR small terrain features terminating in a creek or flat terrain that could result in a deep burial, you need to be very, very confident in the snowpack stability.
  • Use safe travel practices and expose one person at a time to a slope. If there's any question, choose lower consequence terrain. And remember, other people are hazards, too. 

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