Nothing has changed in the past few days, as a matter of fact, it just gets spookier. Every slope my colleagues and I walk on respond with big, booming collapses, and cracks shooting everywhere, suggesting we've got a dangerous setup in our snowpack. And recent avalanches say we don't need to be on steep slopes in order to trigger avalanches.... we just need to be connected to them. And you're probably thinking, it hasn't snowed and what little snow has fallen is light, fluffy, and doesn't feel very threatening. But we're thinking like a rider wanting fresh tracks, not like a snowpack that mirrors an upside-down cake. So let's think, stronger snow on weaker snow. And, if we're thinking like the snowpack we've gotta consider not only about the snow we're riding in, but also the snow we're riding on. Fact is, this type of layering leads to tricky avalanche conditions because our snowpack needs a trigger like us to roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. And yes, we can trigger slides from a distance or from adjacent slopes, and this is the type of avalanche dragon where we can pull the entire log pile down on top of us, even if we're playing on low angle terrain. All we need is to be connected to steep terrain above us. And once triggered, today's avalanches may break wider and deeper than you might expect

Recent winds have been all over the compass leaving some slopes resembling a moonscape, while other slopes look very inviting with a little fresh snow, camouflaging recent drifts, making them harder to detect. The most likely place we'll stumble onto recent drifts is on the leeward side of upper elevation ridges. But, since winds were all over the compass, terrain features like chutes and gullies may be cross-loaded and should be considered suspect. In either case, it's an easy and mostly manageable avalanche problem to avoid by simply steering clear of any fat, rounded piece of snow, particularly if it sounds hollow like a drum. And remember... our snowpack is super shallow and triggering even a small slide can take you for a body-bruising ride through rocks and stumps barely hidden under the thin snowpack.