Few people spend more days on snow than Black Diamond Athlete Mike Barney. He’s been a ski guide for the last two decades and spends an average of nine months a year taking clients into the backcountry. The number one step before heading into the backcountry is reading the forecast first. In this episode, Mike Barney teaches us how to properly read an avalanche forecast, from the terminology you’ll encounter to the diagrams you’ll see. Mike is located in the US, but there are a lot of elements you can use in the interpretation of European avanlanche forecasts.