Well, I just wrapped up the second of two very good powder days. The first I spent with my colleague Drew and we both agreed that after last year, we both really needed to take a day off and have a day full of low density, in your face snow. We have been skiing and snowboarding some steep terrain with no avalanche problems.

But wait!! Hasn't the avalanche danger been CONSIDERABLE?!!

Yes it has. However, this does not apply to all of the terrain out there and you need to read and digest more to understand how to get good powder days when there is CONSIDERABLE or even MODERATE avalanche danger mentioned in our advisories.

The thing is that one single danger rating does a very poor job of describing the avalanche hazard over all of the terrain. That is why we use the Danger Rose to attempt to convey where the problem is located and how dangerous a certain avalanche problem is. This is meant to be used by more experienced backcountry users to give a better overall picture on how some terrain is very dangerous and some isn't on the same day.

Take the danger rose that Evelyn had in her forecast from today. She uses the color orange to fill in the upper elevation northwest through north through northeast facing terrain. This is an attempt to convey that the Persistent Slab avalanche problem is a CONSIDERABLE danger on those northwest through northeast facing aspects in the upper elevation band.

If you read the text describing the Persistent Slab problem, when talking about those specific places Ev notes that "Most have a layer of weak, sugary old snow from October on the ground"

Faceted snow which produces a Persistent Slab avalanche problem is the scariest thing to me. So, it's best to avoid those slopes, which is quite easy to do at this time. All you have to do is make sure you're recreating on slopes that aren't north facing in the upper elevations. East and West and South facing slopes have very little old snow, if any, to act as a weak layer. The new snow has stabilized so basically the only avalanche problem that remains is buried faceted snow from October. Avoid those upper elevation north faces and you're good to go.