The weekend storm adds a whole 'lotta love to the snowpack and that's good news in the long haul, but there's short-term pain for long term gain. In fact, the next couple days are gonna be a good test to see how deeply buried weak layers react. My hunch is... if the storm materializes as forecast, I suspect we'll see a rather notable avalanche cycle. Here's where it gets tricky... as snow and water stacks up, many slopes will teeter on the edge, just waiting for a trigger like us to roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. We've got a couple critical days coming up and we definitely don't wanna be tugging on the avalanche dragons tail testing out our theories.

How do you manage a rowdy avalanche dragon? I keep it straight forward and tight. I'm avoiding steep, rocky, mid and upper elevation terrain on the north half of the compass, especially where the pack is slightly thinner. And I remind myself... thin spots are potential trigger points and exist near bushes, rocks, or steep rollovers.