The past few days of warmth have been good to our snowpack and I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing, particularly in zones where the pack is getting deeper. In other good news... we haven't heard of or seen any significant avalanche activity for just over a week. Now, here's where it gets a little tricky. The Uinta's are a big range and there's lots of variables when it comes to snowpack depth and strength. Remember- "persistent weak layers" in the snowpack are a headache because they remain problem children for long periods of time. And all we need to do is find one weakness, maybe around a bush or rock that we can't see buried underneath the snow, collapse the pack, and now we're staring down the barrel of a scary avalanche. The usual suspect terrain comes to mind. Steep, rocky slopes with a shallow snowpack. So the way I'm avoiding this scenario is by simply avoiding the terrain where this setup exists.... mid and upper elevation, north facing slopes that harbored snow prior to the big Thanksgiving storm. There's a lot of terrain to ride today and not have to deal with unmanageable avalanche conditions, IF you chose slopes that had NO old snow prior to the big Thanksgiving storm.

JG was in the Wolf Creek environs over the weekend. His beautifully detailed pit profile above accurately illustrates our snowpack on the south half of the range.