"There are people here who've been around for 30 years and they've never seen snow that heavy. That's the reason we had such devastating avalanches. There was one, outside the resort area, which wiped out a forest of 100-year-old trees," he said.

Once all the information has been gathered, members of the snow safety team take an aggressive approach to stabilizing conditions, which involves the use of explosives and actually skiing across ski runs, "one at a time. One patrolman skis while another watches. It's exciting, but it can be stressful at times, especially after we've received lots of snow."

Knowing the history of different slopes and slide areas is also helpful information. Snowbird has detailed records dating back to when the resort opened in the 1970s.

And, while the public is most interested in new snow and total depth, the three most pressing questions for Cardinale are density of the snow or how much water it holds, wind direction and wind speed.

"Those three things give us a good indication of the kinds of snow conditions and from that we can put together a forecast."

Then the area can set about making slopes safe and enjoyable for skiers who caught Cardinale's snow report and have come to enjoy the new snow and solid base.

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E-mail: grass@desnews.com