Daily avalanche forecasts are a history of the snowpack, often reading like a novel, with a vast array of personalities, scenes, and of course, a cast characters. And much like a page taken from the book, occasionally one of the leading roles is stripped from the story line. And so it is with the Valentines crust/NSF combo which, over time, has grown relatively dormant, hasn't produced an avalanche in over a week, and the screenwriters put it on the back burner for awhile. Mark explains his research here.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming where much of our terrain offers a deep and relatively strong snowpack and triggering a monster slide that breaks to weak layers now buried deeply in our snowpack is unlikely. Ted and I found a bomber pack yesterday in Upper Chalk Creek. However, slopes that have remained thin and weak this season are likely suspects and need to be avoided. Terrain that has avalanched multiple times and slopes that have been stripped by strong winds fit into this category. Avoiding this deep, dangerous avalanche dragon is the ticket, but ya gotta do your homework and identity terrain with shallow snow.

Steep, rocky zones are likely trigger points because they offer a much thinner snowpack where we can effect the weak snow.