The Utah Avalanche Center, a sentinel when backcountry adventurers need to know about hazardous snow, is sounding a different alarm: It is short of cash.

Director Bruce Tremper's forecast for 2007 includes a $30,000 shortfall that could lead to a staff layoff.

Costs are higher, and an increasing number of skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers and snowshoers means forecasters need to cover more terrain, he said.

"We just can't keep up," Tremper said. "When I started this job 20 years ago, we only had to worry about a handful of telemark skiers in knickers eating granola. Those days are long gone."

The center, which charts backcountry snow conditions and forecasts avalanche risk on its Web site, is a U.S. Forest Service project. But it gets only 20 percent of its $200,000 annual operating budget from the federal government, Tremper said.

The state of Utah contributes $107,000, Salt Lake County gives $25,000, and a support group, Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, raises about $50,000.

Nearly all of it pays the salaries of six forecasters who work 60 hours or more a week. The avalanche staff in Colorado has 15 forecasters.

A recent call for additional donations may fill the budget hole. But Tremper is worried about the future and plans to ask Utah lawmakers for an increase of about $500,000.

"In old days, we had ski swaps to raise money. But it's not a bake-sale organization anymore. We need to fund it," he said.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, has agreed to support the request, Tremper said. A House sponsor is being sought.

"I would like to see them expand their educational mission (to reach) those kids I'm pulling out of the snowpack, and the young adults who believe they are invincible," said Valentine, an avid backcountry skier who volunteers with Utah County's search-and-rescue team.

Since 1998, 224 people have died in U.S. avalanches, according to statistics from the Forest Service National Avalanche Center. About 90 percent of slides are triggered by humans.

In Utah, where statistics date back to 1951, an average of four people die in avalanches each year. There were three deaths in the 2005-06 season and eight, a record, in 2004-05.