SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah — With more snow expected this weekend across the northern Utah mountains, including Big and Little Cottonwood canyons, experts are making sure people stay safe and prepared.
On Friday, it finally looked like winter had arrived, and it got skiers and snowboarders excited to get up the canyon. And as the inches accumulate, the Utah Department of Transportation is keeping its plows going nearly all day, as well as being sticklers for the new traction laws.
“We're definitely enforcing the traction laws a lot more, with the sticker program. It helps us out knowing that we’ve got x amount of cars properly equipped in the canyons to minimize the delays and slide-offs," said UDOT Road Operation Manager Shawn Wright.
On an average snow day, UDOT plows make about 30 passes up and down the canyon, which makes for a common sight, along with the UTA Ski Bus.
Skiers camp out overnight as Snowbasin is set to open this weekend:
“We’ll be providing the same level of service that we did last year," said UTA spokesperson Gavin Gustafson. "We added an additional route last year called Canyon Service One and Two, which provides extra service up Little Cottonwood Canyon, so we are prepped and ready to go.”
Taking the bus could help ease some of the traffic troubles that are all too common in the canyons, and UTA has the flexibility to add even more buses on heavy traffic days, and for good reason.
“While the bus certainly has its own emissions, you’ve got 40 people on the bus, that’s in theory 40 less cars on the road," Gustafson explained.
The first big storm of the season could also bring potential dangers when it comes to avalanche risks.
“This isn’t the kind of snow that makes our license plates famous. It’s going to be dense, it’s going to be heavy, there’s going to be some wind associated with it, and that dense, wind-driven slab is going to fall on top of weak pre-existing layers that formed earlier in the season," said Craig Gordon with the Utah Avalanche Center
For those headed into the backcountry Gordon advises avoiding wind-drifted slopes, especially those facing north. He also expects the avalanche danger to ramp up overnight Friday into Saturday morning.
“Avalanche avoidance, that’s going to be the ticket, that’s the longevity to a safe season," he said.
