Boletín de aludes

Southeast Mountains

Crested Butte Avalanche Center
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Peligro de aludes

Mon
Alta montaña
2 · Moderado
Límite del bosque
2 · Moderado
Bajo el límite
2 · Moderado
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Desactualizado: este boletín caducó 4 years ago. Estás viendo condiciones pasadas, no el boletín vigente.

Lo esencial

More startling activity from the alpine yesterday serves as a stern warning for the type of avalanche you can trigger today.  Avalanches breaking near the ground are slowly becoming harder to trigger and will give few obvious warning signs.  Evaluate the snowpack and terrain consequences carefully before considering avalanche terrain.  Recently wind-loaded slopes are the most dangerous today.   Wind-sheltered terrain facing south and southwest offers the safest steep riding options.  

Problemas de aludes

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alta montaña
    • Límite del bosque
    • Bajo el límite del bosque
    Probabilidad
    Possible
    Tamaño
    1.5–2.5

    Storms this month have built thick and hard persistent slabs over a widespread weak layer of facets and faceted crusts. These slabs are generally 2 to 3-feet thick. The vast majority of avalanche activity this month has occurred on west to north to southeast aspects, with only a few avalanches from alpine south to southwest facing alpine terrain. Persistent slabs are notorious for erratic feedback and unusual behavior, such as remote triggering and wide propagation. To reliably avoid the problem, choose routes that keep you off and out from under terrain steeper than about 30 degrees that hold old, weak snow near the ground. In steeper terrain, you can reduce your chance of triggering an avalanche by avoiding trigger points where the snowpack is thinner than average.  

    This persistent slab avalanche wrapped from shady to sunny aspects and broke on weak layers near the ground. This a good example of the potential size and widely propagating behavior of our current persistent slab problem. 

Avalanche Discussion

With dry weather since Thursday and wind transport diminishing over the past couple of days, the avalanche danger continues to slowly decline.  Our field observations this week highlight that the persistent slab problem has become stubborn to triggers.  BUT, if you do initiate a collapse, from an inconspicuous or obvious shallow spot, it can bring down the whole slope to the ground (see video).  It's clear that snowpack is most stressed near and above treeline from our recent wind events.  Observers reported yet another D3 valley crusher near Yule Pass that likely failed because of a wind shift and increase sometime yesterday.  This is on the heels of numerous destructive avalanches that released out of the alpine late last week  (Example A, Example B).   As the likelihood of natural and human-triggered avalanches slowly declines over the next few days, we're trimming the danger to Moderate in the Southeast Mountains first.  Observations suggest that recent activity near and east of town has been a little less extensive, smaller in size (up to D2.5), and that recent wind events ravaged that alpine harder reducing the distribution of problematic slopes.    Regardless of where you are traveling today, it's important to recognize that the potential avalanche size is not decreasing, just the likelihood.  Scroll through our media gallery below to get a sense of the type of avalanche that you can trigger today.  

There has been significantly less avalanche activity below treeline in the past week.  There's less variability below treeline so it is a bit easier to make reliable snowpack and terrain assessments.   If your assessments in this type of terrain suggest it's appropriate to step out, consider consequences such as slope size and terrain traps such as trees and gullies.  Slabs below treeline are thinner but more reactive closer to town, and thicker but more stubborn in more snow-favored areas away from the donut hole.   

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