Northern San Juan

New snow and west wind drifting snow increase your chance of triggering an avalanche. You can trigger avalanches in the new snow, but the main concern remains finding a shallow spot in the slab on a steep slope and triggering a large avalanche that breaks in the middle or bottom of the snowpack. The most dangerous slopes face the north half of the compass and east.

Choose low-angle planar slopes and avoid likely trigger points, like the thinner margins of a slab, convex rollovers, and shallowly buried rocks.

The strong March sun will start to warm the snow on sunny slopes. Watch for Loose avalanches in the new snow during the heat of the day. Avoid traveling on or under suspect, sunny, rocky slopes.