Southern San Juan

Avoid traveling on steep slopes below large, overhanging cornices. Give them a wide berth if you are traveling along ridgelines. Cornices are breaking unpredictably and triggering large avalanches on the slopes below. You don't want to be falling with a bus-sized chunk, or have one fall down towards you. Avalanches could break widely if you trigger one on wind-drifted northerly and east-facing slopes. Northerly-facing, wind-sheltered terrain offers safer travel options.

Move off steep slopes once you sink past your ankles into wet snow. Loose avalanches will be easy to trigger on very steep slopes once the snow is that wet. The soggy snow will follow the sun from east to south to west, and up in elevation with the warming temperatures. Pay attention to slopes below about 9,500 feet where the snowpack is unusually deep.

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