Gunnison

Limited time offer!  It's a great weekend to enjoy unseasonably nice weather and unseasonably stable conditions in the mountains.  Avalanche hazards are small and isolated due to a lack of recent snowfall.  Stay alert in very steep or consequential terrain. The green light looks to get extinguished sometime next week if snowfall returns as forecast.    

The snowpack is has been relatively quiet since our last storm on November 24th.  billy barr's observation from Gothic yesterday paints an insightful picture into our meager snowpack.  It's a "normal caution" type of weekend.  If you are venturing into extreme or high consequence terrain, stay alert for a few small issues, none of which are hazardous enough to list as an avalanche problem.  We saw a few thin wind slabs pop following an uptick in alpine winds on Tuesday night (example), and a skier triggered a small slab of drifted snow last week on Mt. Baldy. A similar slide was triggered by a sluff sometime last week.    Keep an eye out for these pockets of recent or older drifts in steep alpine terrain, signaled by a dense, stiffer feeling snow surface over weaker snow below.  The snowpack is getting progressively weaker on shady aspects, and you can trigger small sluffs in very steep, shady terrain where the snowpack feels loose cohesionless.  On sun-baked, snow-covered slopes, you may encounter a wetter version of these sluffs in very steep terrain that is slushy or mushy.  

With a pattern change expected next week, snowfall will be burying what has become a very weak and faceted snowpack on shadier aspects.  Now is a good time to take note of surface conditions because today's snow surface will likely become a significant persistent weak layer that will be driving instabilities for a long while into the future if we get into a snowier pattern. 

Upcoming CBAC Events

• Avalanche Awareness Night: Tonight! Center for the Arts, doors open at 5 p.m.  Streaming live.
• Beacon Brushup: ThisSunday!  CB Community School.  9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Afterparty at the Talk.