Northern San Juan

Westerly wind with plenty of dry snow will build slabs and continue to test the snowpack. You could trigger an avalanche where you find 8 inches or more of drifted snow. Avoid areas that look smooth, rounded, or feel hollow. An avalanche in freshly drifted snow may step down, triggering a larger, more dangerous slide that breaks on weak-layers buried in the snowpack. Triggering an avalanche deeper in the snowpack will result in a ride that would be difficult to escape and large enough to bury you. Likely, trigger points for larger avalanches include shallow buried rocks, convex rollovers, and just below ridgelines and will be easier to trigger where the snowpack is less than two meters deep. Avalanches will be largest on northerly and easterly slopes.

You can find safer travel options on wind-sheltered slopes at lower elevations and by sticking to low-angle slopes without steep slopes overhead.