Throughout the storm cycle, winds blew out of the south, southeast, southwest, northwest and west, transporting an amazing amount of snow onto leeward slopes, not only up high in the wind zone, but down into mid and low elevation terrain as well. Yesterday the winds switched to the northwest and now they're back to the southeast. You get the idea... nearly every aspect is wind loaded now. Avalanches triggered in the newly formed wind drifts can break into weaker layers of snow, now buried deep in the snowpack, producing larger, more dangerous avalanches than you might expect.

While the avalanche warning has expired, we're not even close to being out of the woods just yet and avalanche conditions will get deceptively trickier the next few days. As the snowpack gains strength avalanches become more difficult to trigger, but once initiated they're likely to be deep, dangerous and unsurvivable. (Click here for a brief snowpack tutorial). Our current problem child is the weak near surface facets formed during the December dry spell and these sugary crystals are now buried and preserved in the mid portion of our snowpack. As a a matter of fact, our snowpit stability tests reveal this persistent buried weak layer isn't well behaved and nearly all the recent avalanche activity revolves around this notoriously dangerous weak layer. Many steep slopes throughout the range hang in the balance, just waiting for a rider to come along and knock the legs out from underneath it. In addition, avalanches are still being triggered on the "flats" at the bottom of steep slopes, so you need to be aware of steep terrain above and adjacent to where you're riding even when you're playing on relatively low angle slopes. These are exactly the type of snowpack conditions that lead to most fatal avalanche accidents in the western Uinta Mountains. There’s no reason to pull on the dogs tail. Have some patience, let the snowpack heal and get after it when the avalanche conditions are manageable. We have a dangerous snowpack and avalanches triggered today can break into weak snow near the ground, resulting in a deep and unsurvivable slide.