Strong winds and dense heavy snow will most likely reawaken dormant weak layers now buried several feet deep in our midpack.... and my bet is they're gonna be cranky when they wake up and come back to life. Our snowpack history reveals that each time there's a sufficient load of water weight, wind, and snow we see avalanches that break unmanageably wide and deep, often failing around our persistent midpack weakness. Today's weather is unusual for us and I'm not really sure what to make of it. What I do know is this.... unusual weather makes for unusual avalanches. So rather than just rolling the dice I'm going to make conservative terrain decisions and stick with low angle slopes with no steep terrain above or adjacent to where I'm riding.

JG was near Hoyt Peak earlier this week and here's his insight to our snowpack structure. "Pit tests were stubborn and somewhat inconclusive but I would be hard pressed to jump into steep terrain on the north half of the compass, especially if there is an easterly component to the slope. Things will be changing by the weekend and early next week with the addition of more water weight to the snowpack."

Sage advice from a seasoned snow pro. More on JG's travels are found here.