Gunnison

The lull in accumulating snowfall and wind loading over the past 24 hours is reducing the chances of triggering an avalanche.  However, we suggest a cautious approach to high elevation, shaded aspects where several large avalanches have been triggered in the past week.  The trouble-maker slopes all shared common characteristics:  paths that avalanched back in February that have since refilled with wind drifted snow, in the transition from near to above treeline elevations.  You'll find the safest riding today on slopes with a deeper, more uniform snowpack or on the southern half of the compass.  

Winds have been light over the past 24 hours, and the mountains saw a couple inches of new snow or less since yesterday's forecast.  Surface instabilities should be settling out now, and we've pulled wind slabs from the problem list.  You may be able to find isolated instabilities in the recent or drifted snow, particularly on very steep, northerly aspects, where the snow surface remained dry after yesterday's sunny weather.  Monitor new snow accumulations today for the potential for shallow new snow instabilities to develop, especially if winds increase later this afternoon.  

With shallow instabilities on the mend, and a pause in snowfall, avalanche problems have trended to unlikely today, and we are trending closer to LOW danger.  However, our travel advice right now aligns best with MODERATE danger.   We have seen a few large avalanches triggered this week that broke across larger high elevation start zones: Cement, Peeler, and Axtell.  We are traveling cautiously still, especially around alpine terrain that avalanched back in February.    The recent persistent slab avalanches all released in the same paths that ran as very large avalanches back in February.  Avalanche activity in February left many paths with a shallow and weak snowpack, and we are gradually seeing these paths start to rebuild slabs on top of the weak snow, from both snow and windloading.  There is still a lot of previously avalanched terrain where these ingredients aren't in place, and until we see a dramatic loading event, the problem remains isolated for now.  A tricky piece to this situation, both for our forecast staff and for recreators, is that you can't get feedback from this problem until you are on an avalanche slope.  Low angle terrain has a deeper, stronger snowpack structure.  Because of this, our forecast uncertainty is higher.  We do have high confidence that the problem is confined to shadier aspects. The recent warm-ups have caused meltwater to drain deep into the snowpack on sunny aspects, making for a stronger, spring-like snowpack now that the meltwater is refreezing.  I'm most cautious of old bedsurfaces that have seen good wind transport in recent weeks, making for stiffer and denser slabs over the weak snow that was left behind.  This observation from yesterday demonstrates a weak snowpack in a bed surface that is lacking a dense enough slab to be concerning.  

Colorado's 12th avalanche fatality of the season occurred yesterday near Beaver Creek.  Details on the accident are forthcoming.