Grand Mesa

Current Conditions 

This past weekend’s Special Avalanche Advisory has expired but that doesn’t mean avalanche conditions are safe. You can trigger wet avalanches if you are on steep slopes after melt-freeze crusts become unsupportable and you are sinking into wet snow. Start your day early and end early to reduce your risk of avalanches. Have a plan to avoid steep slopes, and get back to the trailhead, should conditions worsen quicker than you think.

 Avalanche and Snowpack Discussion

The beginning of the week (June 10 – June 11) brings slightly cooler temperatures than the blazing hot temperatures we experienced from June 6 to June 9. Although temperatures are cooler, more overnight cloud cover is forecast. Overnight cloud cover is problematic. Even with recent hot temperatures, clear skies at night helped to form supportable, surface melt-freeze crusts that allowed for a few hours of early-morning safe-travel conditions. Thick cloud cover overnight means that crusts won’t form and a window of safe travel may be nonexistent. This is something that you will have to monitor by observing cloud cover and being ready to change your plans if you get on the snow and find mushy, wet conditions before the sun even rises.

 Over the past few days, we had a few reports of large avalanches. One was a cornice-triggered avalanche near Loveland Pass and also a large Wet Slab avalanche in Rocky Mountain National Park on Mount Ida on a north-facing slope. Avalanche activity doesn’t seem to be widespread, but it’s hard to tell right now with fewer people recreating on snow in the mountains. The concern is for the intermittent reports of larger avalanches that continue to come in. As mentioned above, if you avoid steep terrain once surface crusts melt, you can easily avoid avalanches.

It is hard to pinpoint a specific aspect and elevation where the most dangerous slopes are. East-facing slopes above treeline seem to be the most active, but we have seen avalanches on a variety of mostly above-treeline slopes. It is easier to describe the most dangerous slopes by certain slope characteristics than a precise aspect and elevation. Characteristics of more dangerous slopes are- very steep slopes (steeper than 40 degrees), slopes with a lot of exposed rock, and slopes with a shallow snowpack.

.Large, overhanging cornices are also a concern. If they fall onto the slope below, a larger avalanche can result as the weight of the fallen cornice gauges deeply into the snowpack. These cornices are also a threat if you are walking on ridgelines, as they can break much further back than you expect, especially during this current stretch of above-normal temperatures.

The snowpack and avalanche conditions are not as straightforward as we would like for early June. Fortunately, it is easy to see and feel worsening conditions while you are in the backcountry. You need supportable crusts to travel right now. If you are punching through into the snowpack, avoid steep slopes where this is happening.

Weather

You can get current weather forecasts by clicking the map on the CAIC's Weather Forecast page. Our computer Model Forecasts update four times daily and will run through the summer. If you are going into the Colorado high country, use our Weather Stations page to check current conditions.

We will update this avalanche information as conditions change. Click the map to get the latest conditions. Please keep sending us your field reports. We rely on your information to stay current on avalanche conditions across the state. There have been fatal avalanche accidents every month of the year in Colorado, so don't let your guard down.