Today's storm will be a one-two punch on the chin of our snowpack. And as snow begins falling and winds continue cranking they'll work in concert together to create additional weight and stress on weak layers of snow buried in the mid portion of our snowpack. Let's face it, the Uinta pack is structurally challenged with strong snow resting on top of weak snow. What this means for us is that any slide we trigger is gonna break deep and wide. Now, I wouldn't build my house on a foundation like that and I'm certainly not gonna bet my life on it... so avalanche avoidance is the big ticket. Since we know this setup is found on mid and upper elevation slopes facing the north half of the compass, we can simply avoid where this avalanche dragon lives and still have a blast riding low angle terrain with no steep slopes above of adjacent to us.

Remember- in the past few days there have been multiple slides triggered, a few close calls, and one tragic fatality nearby, with a snowpack structure similar to ours. The writing is on the wall and Mother Nature is screaming the biggest clue to unstable snow... and that's AVALANCHES!

Hurricane force winds are rapidly forming dense, cohesive slabs on leeward slopes at mid and upper elevations and probably getting into lower elevation terrain as well. Problem is... they're hard to detect, but once triggered, they may break into deeper buried weak layers as the crash onto the slope below. Here's the good news... you can simply avoid this avalanche dragon by avoiding steep, wind drifted slopes, especially if the snow looks fat and rounded or feels and sounds hollow like a drum.