Recent snow generally fell straight out of the sky with little wind. However, underneath that fluff, lurks an old wind drift or two that may still react to our additional weight and has the potential to break deeper and wider than you might expect. Not widespread and limited to steep, leeward, upper elevation terrain, the best way to manage this setup is to simply look for and avoid any fat, rounded piece of snow, especially if it sounds hollow like a drum.

The days are getting longer, temperatures are slowly warming, overall snow depths are becoming incredibly deep, and the snowpack is getting to its happy place.... as a matter of fact, so am I. We are trending in the right direction and recent snowpack stability tests along with the lack of avalanches failing on weak snow near the ground suggest we're turning the corner. That said... deep dangerous avalanches are becoming harder to trigger. All encouraging news for sure, but we've got to remember there's a lot of terrain that makes up the landscape of the western Uinta range and I'm not entirely convinced all slopes are good to go. The same kind of terrain I avoid early season still gives me pause right now. Steep, rocky, technical terrain with a thin, shallow snowpack remains suspect and there's no reason to tug on the dogs tail to see how it reacts, especially with all the other safe riding opportunities out there.