Thinking about terrain. There's quite a bit of history in our mountains and quite a bit of avalanche history as well. We're lucky to have a lot of options when we head to the backcountry...which is a good thing - after all, matching our terrain choices to the avalanche conditions may be the Holy Grail for a long life. Of course this isn't a new concept. Well decorated historian of the American West Wallace Stegnerimplored us to have a "society to match the scenery". We can aspire.

A few years ago, I (with the help of Dr. Phoebe McNeally, Mark Hammond and others of the University of Utah) put together a few routes in the Wasatch and rated them on a green to yellow to orange to red scale (similar to the Canadian ATES scale, but that's another story) to convey their interaction with avalanche terrain. You can find it here. Three routes involve Butler Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon. You can find one of the three here. They're all rated orange, even through they stay mostly on the trail. Why orange? Well...watch the video and see. Photos below from four years ago of an incident 200 yards in from the trailhead that involved some young skiers at the University as described in the video...

Another reason to avoid terrain traps -