They can blend into one extremely long light pull if it loses the staging...but that isn't going to happen sitting in the safe over the winter.
Can you still feel the two distinctive stages as you slowly squeeze the trigger...the majority of the travel but little weight on the take up, and the balance of the weight with very little travel on the let off?
An increase in pull weight is often due to a physical impediment of some sort. Any rust or other corrosion in/on the trigger components? Any chance of something embedded in the trigger group (we find blown primers in there quite a bit on complaints of hard pull/can't pull the trigger)? Did you use any grease on it last year which may have hardened now (we never encourage the use of grease on any component on our rifles)?
Just some things to look at/consider...
Thanks.
Steve/RRA