Dubbed “Miracle March” by many, the last month of snowfall and sunny ski days have made up for a season of unpredictable weather and sullied snow days. Utah Avalanche Center forecaster Dave Kelly reflected on this season with a blog post, calling this season the “year of the repeater,” wher e the snowpack experienced continual repeating avalanches on the same persistent weak layer for most of the season. As the buried weak layers that have been problematic in the last months have gone dormant, the snowpack has become much more predictable. “This layer of weak faceted snow continued to avalanche and because it never really had a chance to recover before being re-buried, we continued to see avalanches (repeaters) time and time again,” wrote Kelly. “After a good test of this layer with heavy snow and wind over the last two weeks, the Salt Lake forecast team has started to see signs showing healing — a deeper snowpack and a lack of avalanche activity on this layer.” The Utah Avalanche Center is preparing for the spring adventurers with events including forecaster Craig Gordon’s State of the Snowpack presentation, where he explained the weather events that have impacted the backcountry through March. Gordon emphasized the human factor of decision making in avalanche terrain, particularly as it relates to the dangers of perceiving this season as a “low tide” snow year, despite being in line with the annual average for snowfall this year.Gordon describes the inherent risk and danger of entering avalanche terrain as the metaphorical “avalanche dragon,” where every decision chances falling into the avalanche dragon’s den. “Even though we are totally thinking things out, if we have misinformation and apply that to a certain type of avalanche dragon, eventually those paths don’t align and we get deeper and deeper into the avalanche dragon’s den, and that might start off with misaligning what the avalanche problem is with our terrain choices,” said Gordon. Ultimately, while avalanche danger is decreasing, it is not absent. With warm April sun, wet avalanches are possible.“This problem is being relegated to dormancy right now, though there is always the chance that, with warming temperatures this spring and periods when we stop freezing for longer than 24 hours, melt-water hitting the weak snow near the ground could initiate a large natural spring avalanche cycle,” wrote Kelly. “Low danger does not mean no danger, and you can’t trust a facet till it’s melted.”The post Utah Avalanche Center looks on for a safer spring, warns of April sun appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less