TODAY’S WEATHER HIGH LOW
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State and Regional AND NATIONAL FORECAST ON PAGE 23.
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NTSB: Wrecked train going too fast at curve.
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Tuesday
December 3, 2013 Volume 36 Issue 285
EE FR ■■Regional
Sound of Greater Y’stone unique
PRICE CHAMBERS/JACKSON HOLE DAILY
Robin McGee makes turns near the trees on Symmetry at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort on opening day last week. “It’s pretty good. Casper’s a little thin, but Apres Vous is great,” McGee said.
Snow boosts slide risk By Angus M. Thuermer Jr. Jackson Hole Daily
A winter storm canceled flights into Jackson Hole on Sunday and boosted avalanche danger in the backcountry to high. Pushed by winds that were expected to gust to near 70 mph Monday evening, the storm laid down 10 inches at the bottom of Rendezvous Bowl at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort on Sunday and Monday morning. Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center forecasters at Teton Village said Monday they expected another 8 to
24 inches by today. Two flights into the valley were canceled Sunday and another did not leave Jackson Hole Monday morning. Flights resumed at about noon Monday. Forecasters warned about new snow and wind creating “very dangerous avalanche conditions.” “New dense slabs lie upon a variety of slick old snow surfaces,” Monday’s avalanche report said. “Dense slab avalanches are likely to release naturally on a variety of aspects and human-triggered avalanches are very likely.” Forecasters recommended
against travel in avalanche terrain above 9,000 feet. The Wyoming Department of Transportation said Monday it planned to control avalanches above Highway 22 between Wilson and Victor, Idaho early this morning. The avalanche center backcountry forecast does not apply to ski areas, where ski patrollers guard against slides each day by ski-checking slopes or bombing them with explosives. The forecast also does not apply above 10,500 feet. One recent backcountry observation could be a worrisome harbinger. On Nov. 26, Don Carpenter of the American Av-
alanche Institute and Zahan Billimoria dug a snow pit on a north-facing slope near Mount Glory above Wilson and found a dangerous layer down low. The pair uncovered weak, faceted snow in the bottom 9 inches of the snowpack, according to information they posted with the avalanche center. “Boot penetration was to the crotch/ground,” they wrote. The pit was at the top of a 35-degree, north-facing run called Chicken Scratch. In a test the pair recorded on video, a soft tap on the top of the test pit wall caused a block of snow to slide free. See Slide on page 3
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — It may sound like the lead-in to a joke, but would a southern whitetailed deer have a different accent, maybe a drawl, from one that lives in Montana? Yes, said Kenning Arlitsch, dean of the Montana State University Library. No joking. “If you get isolated populations different from each other, it’s not so crazy,” he said. Arlitsch has helped launch a new website the university is hosting, called Acoustic Atlas. It offers free online access to a variety of sounds — from animals, people, nature — many of them recorded in the Greater Yellowstone area. “We think this is important because sound is such an important communication mechanism for all creatures,” he said. Arlitch also noted that with increasing development, the soundscapes are constantly changing with the intrusion of noises like highway traffic or planes flying overhead. “It’s getting difficult to find places without intrusions,” he said, just as it’s hard to find night skies unadulterated by electric lights. The MSU site hosts a variety of sounds made by wildlife — including the kazoolike whine of a pika — as well as ambient sounds from nature such as a boiling geothermal feature in Yellowstone National Park. It also contains interviews, such as the one with Howard Spangler explaining how he has learned to record ant sounds by holding the insects gently between his teeth. “There are very few sound atlases,” Arlitsch said. “And most See Y’stone on page 6