Wow, it's been an exciting week. Last weekend, the largest storm of the year so far slammed down 3 feet of snow in the upper Cottonwood Canyons, which easily overloaded the extremely fragile layer of depth hoar near the ground. Then on Tuesday, a warm and windy event capped the powder with dense wind deposits. A number of both natural and remotely triggered avalanches broke deep and wide. This is an aspect-elevation rose of the avalanche activity from the last week. You can see that all the avalanches have been on elevations above 9,000' and on slopes facing …

With a potentially significant storm rolling into Utah for Saturday through Monday, here's an avalanche primer on what to expect: The day before a major winter storm is forecast to arrive, you will see all of us avalanche geeks out mapping the distribution pattern of the preexisting snow. Answering the questions: 1. Where is the weak snow? 2) How weak is it? 3) What is the pattern? The answers to these questions will tell you where we will find avalanche danger once we slam a slab of snow down on top of it. Here is what I found in my fieldwork yesterday: Last …

It’s that time of the season when those of us who are brave enough to maneuver around the shallowly buried rocks and stumps are eager to get out and immerse ourselves in the snow for the first time. As I age I’ve learned to be patient but I remember getting out on steep slopes the first chance I got. I’d take the rock skis or snowboard out and descend through new snow for the first time not being too worried about clobbering a few rocks. Often times I wouldn’t be too worried about avalanches either. But the start of each season is different and …

Winter Review viddy edited by Trent Meisenheimer and Craig Gordon. Many thanks to all of you for your great observations, images, and content.

This is a guest blog provided by one of our observers who, to protect his identity, we'll refer to as "Todd Leeds". Wise words. Most of us Wasatch skiers tend to put our ski gear away in the spring with the anticipation that it should be ready to grab as we run out the door during that first fall storm when there is just enough snow to walk up some of our closed resorts.We typically throw on our beacons with last year's batteries and are ready to go.This is also a great time to get rid of that moldy half eaten sandwich that has been sitting in the pack all …

It's that time of year again when all types of charlatans issue their winter forecasts, which you often see sprayed across the Internet and on tabloid headlines in the grocery store checkout line. It's also the time of year when most every social interaction I have begins with "What kind of winter are we supposed to have this year?." To whichI always answer "If I could do that, I could be fabulously wealthy." It breaks my heart to see their confused looks, so I feel compelledto further explain that weather is the epitome of a chaotic system, and as such, it's …

Reprinted with permission from http://t-dawgspeaks.blogspot.com/ When we arrived at theValhallalodge a couple of Saturdays ago our group of 10 started our week with avalanche rescue practice and - as always - it was a great learning experience for all. Subsequent to that brother Paul spent a day in the Uintas with a snowmobile avalanche class doing the same. We agreed that a bit of a discussion regarding avy rescue practice was worth a blog post. It is important to shift the discussion from “beacon search” to “avalanche rescue”. New beacons are …