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Show Daily Utah Chronicle Thursday, February 26, 2004 i - r Candidates visit earch project ocuses on city growth residence halls Tyler Peterson Staff Writer Amln Alehashem Staff Writer James West Travel Columnist Stayin' alive in the state's backcountry Where has all the snow gone these days? Hopefully it comes back soon, but in the meantime, if you're looking for anything other than jumps at the resort, you're going to have to go into the backcountry and even then there are slim pickings for good powder. Last weekend, I went into Big Cottonwood, and several tricks I found proved useful to finding exciting and safe slopes to ski. Before you even think about going into the backcountry, make sure you and everyone you're going with has an avalanche transceiver. There is actually a lot of specialized equipment that you need in order to get into the backcountry safely, but don't let that scare you away you can rent just about everything you need from the Outdoor Recreation Program. Assuming you have everything else, transceivers are $10 to rent. That being said, people who get buried by slides are usually ignorant to two or more warning signs. Here are a couple obvious ones to look for. When hiking or skiing to your destination, if you ever hear a "whoosh" sound or a thud underneath you, this is a bad, bad thing. What is happening is that a layer of snow is collapsing from your weight. If you hear this on a steep slope, you need to get off it, fast. This weak layer is called "depth hoar" (why?!) and is essentially frost making the snow into really thin shards kind of like a huge house of cards. Because of this, it will give way and collapse just like a house of cards, making it very un- stable. A good test you can do on your way up the mountain is to take your ski pole and jam it into the snow beside you. Do this at the same spot several times to see if you break through to different layers of snow if you do, take note. Looking around to other mountains and slopes that are facing the same way as the slope you intend to ski can help inform you about general avalanche conditions, too. If you want to ski a south-facin- g chute and you look across that valley and you see that all the south-facin- g slopes show signs of avalanche debris, you should choose another place to ski. A major contributor to the occurrence of avalanches is wind-loadin- This happens g. on leeward slopes when the wind blows over the top, depositing more snow than in other areas. What happens is that the snow gets bonded together from small amounts of heat created by friction while it is being blown around. This creates a massive and quite cohesive layer that you think would be a good thing. It isn't, though, because if the slope is steep, gravity is pulling down on that entire layer, stretching it just like a rubber band. Your ski or board edge acts just a pair of scissors held to the edge of that rubber band when it's stretched out, making the slope very prone to a large slab avalanche. Something I tried last weekend that worked quite well is to use a cornice to your advantage. A cornice is a large piece of snow hanging over a wind-loade- d slope. This is actually a good way to tell what slopes are wind-loade- d or not the ones that the cornice points to or hangs over are the ones that are wind-loadeWhat you can do is take a long piece of thin rope and tie knots in it, marking off every foot. You and a friend can carefully loop the rope around the cornice and proceed to saw it off. When it falls, it will have much more of an impact than any skier would on the snow, and cause the slope to slide if it is going to most likely covering my ass. Have fun in the backcountry and remember to go with knowledgeable people so that you to can become old and aware instead of dead. jwest&)chronicle.ut3h.edu d. How are jobs and the overall economic status of the Salt Lake Valley related to greenhouse gas emissions, water usage or issues of forestation? These are just some of the questions that a research team at the U is attempting ground-breakin- g to answer. The project, known as the Urban Trace-ga- s Emissions Study, has brought together a variety of experts from fields including several biologists, geologists, meteorologists, chemical and mechanical engineers and urban planners to create simulation models in hopes of gaining better knowledge of the inner workings of an urban ecosystem. the projUltimately, ect hopes to inform policy makers on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, maintain high air quality standards and improve the quality of life of urban residents in a valley experiencing rapid growth. "In the long term, through continuing this type of effort, the end product is to inform and educate," said Joe Klewicki, a project member and mechanical engineering professor at the U. The research indicates links between the economy, fuel and water consumption, urban sprawl, traffic congestion and issues, ty Klewicki said. "There's a whole economic overlay on this and we're trying to recognize how tit works in order to chip away at the complexity of the problem," he said. Philip Emmi, head of the urban simulation-modelin- g task project, characterized the links in a report released in conjunction with the study. Emmi said that as the periphery of the Salt Lake Val ley expands, the current ty construction. He said this puts a strain on municipal budgets and might result in an adverse effect for Utah's world's population will be urbanized, according to UN economy. "Jobs will grow more slowly. Unemployment, long below national averages, will stand at and then above national averages," Emmi stated. Project members said that the data they collect is used to provide some of the information for computer simulation models. Data collection for the project hopefully will help gauge emissions levels at differing points in the valley, researchers said. agree that there could be The research data focuses on "identifying the sources of emissions, such as vehicle emissions, industrial emissions, contributions from residential heating and emissions from urban vegetation," according to the project's Web site. The project has had to deal with its fair share of problems, though. Legal liabilities and zoning regulations have made it difficult to place the data gathering towers in desired locations. "Thus far we've made our observations in the field campaign at compromised levels," Craig Forster, In last night's residence hall debate, all the candidates expressed a desire to get students living in the dorms more involved, but had different ideas of how to do so. statistics. Members of the project harmful consequences to the existing pattern of growth. "We hope to come up with a few of the key mechanisms that impact the way a city grows and then determine how we can then implement policy that recognizes these things and mitigates some of their negative aspects," Kle- The United party mentioned bringing a part of Redfest to the "steps of the Heritage Center." Members also spoke of continuing current plans to build a new and improved recreation center near the Legacy Bridge. wicki said. Richard Goldberger, of the Student Government by Objectives party, spoke of holding a talent show, with a cash prize of $10,000 and a possible Hollywood contract for the winner. The neXt party presented their "Red Noon" idea as part of their plan to "unite the campus through traditions." The concept behind the idea is that most students are on campus during the day and aren't able to attend the events at night, for whatever reason. Red Noon would bring activities to the U during the daytime, in hopes that more students would be able to become involved and participate. Alex Lowe, presidential candidate of the Grassroots party said, "We want to take the residence halls down to main Forster said educating policy makers is an important dimension of the project. "We are hoping to get policy makers to start thinking about the emissions consequences of their policies," Forster said. He said the computer simulation models will play a significant role in the education process. "In some cases, we hope to show that perhaps the consequences that might be expected by us are unanticipated by them," Forster said. Students interested in helping conduct research for the project can contact Forster at cforstermines.utah. edu. aalehashem chronicle. utah. edu ASUU to you." Taking the lead from her running mates, Sara Hogan, running for senior class president with the RE: party, dealt another verbal jab to Bobby Harrington of the Grassroots party. Harrington, in response to a question about how the elected officials would deal, with other parties in the future, said he had friends in each party and that he would love to go out to lunch with them. "We don't want to have lunch with you, we want to work with you," Hogan said. Dorm students also wanted to know if the candidates were going to disappear after elections, something they felt has happened in the past. Goldberger's solution to the problem is having an ASUU satellite office at the Heritage Center. He also suggested that the elected president sleep at the dorms at least one night a week, rotating among the buildings every week. The United and the neXt parties promised to communicate with people at the dorms. tpetersonchronicle.utah.edu out- yard," Klewicki said. Between 1950 and 1990, urbanized lands in America quintupled while urban populations doubled, according to Emmi. , by 2007 more than half of all humans will reside in urban areas and by 2030, over 60 percent of the , ' , LGSU hosts ! j . Hi debate for ASUU candidates ft 1 1 I "It's your personal business...! have no problem," said Student Government by who i , 1 Objectives candidate Richard Goldberger. He prefers to call homosexuality "gender affinity." Lowe quoted Voltaire. "I may disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Natalie Blomquist, senior class presidential candidate for the United party, mentioned that though a great family friend of hers is homosexual, she doesn't view him differently from others. In a bold statement, presidential candidate for the neXt party Scott Ence told the gays that he neither supports homosexuality nor gay marriage. He added that it was not important because if elected, the opinions of those he would represent matter, but his opinion would not. "Everyone deserves the same right," he said. The Re: Party, however, is the one that has the support of the president of LGSU, Littlefield, 'it 4 4 Lauren The RE: party saw it as a chance to make a smart comment and replied, "We don't want to bring you to lower campus, because this is your home. We want to bring the reach coordinator for the project and an associate research professor of geology and geophysics at the U said. "Working in a city has a lot of constraints." "After talking to the Zoning Commission people, I feel fortunate that I can put a basketball hoop in my back- trend in development policy is geared toward lower densi- - continued from page campus." Chances ero, if you don't have hzdlh coveregs it's because you think you can't afford it... tki:::c again. is actually involved with their campaign. Candidates also told the audience their position about guns on campus. The United party is in favor of guns on campus. The neXt party says it will go with what students want and all other parties say that, for now, they are against guns on w1 l;;:mi campus. "Remember, guns don't kill people, assholes with guns kill people," Goldberger said. Candidates from the Space Monkey Mafia were not able to attend the debate. tpeterson Pchronicle.utah.edu The Career Fair is Coming! . L AY " MARCH 9 Cf DAY. MARCH IO SCIE BU'f- - NCt AND ENGINEERING SOCIAL STUDIES ?C?S, HUMANITIES ,. r r ,"c. A r'l$,UTH.F DU March f 9 & 1 o, 2004 UNION BALLROOM 9: OO AM - 3:OOPM - I |
