Grand Mesa

Current Conditions

Backcountry travelers are finding supportable, safe avalanche conditions at upper elevations where there are thick, frozen surface crusts in the early morning hours. Below about 12,500 feet, upper snowpack crusts are becoming unsupportable in the late morning, particularly on easterly and southerly slopes and in steep, rocky terrain. You can trigger wet avalanches once the surface crust is unsupportable and you begin to sink into the snowpack. Avoid steep slopes if you are sinking past your ankles, hear or feel collapsing, or the snowpack feels unsupportable.

Avalanche and Snowpack Discussion

The snowpack is melting with the snowline near 11,000 feet in the Northern Mountains; increasing in elevation as you head south in the state. Within about 1000 feet of this snowline, the snowpack is thin, crusts are less supportable, and we are seeing recent avalanche activity. We received a report of a large and wide (although shallow) natural Wet Slab avalanche on an easterly slope near Mt Arkansas in the Central Mountains. Another Wet Slab avalanche was reported over the weekend from the Indian Peaks in the Front Range. Although avalanche activity isn’t frequent, these isolated large wet slabs are concerning and something you should be aware of.

Temperatures are increasing throughout the week with some of the warmest temperatures of the year on Thursday (June 6) and Friday (June 7). Daytime high temperatures are expected to reach the mid-sixties at 11,000 feet. These high temperatures combined with above-freezing temperatures at night will result in more Wet Slab avalanches in the coming days. Pay attention to cloud cover overnight as any cloud cover will limit the ability of the snowpack to cool off overnight, making avalanche conditions worse, and limiting the length of the early-morning safe-travel window.

With clear skies at night, you can still find a safe travel window even though nighttime temperatures aren’t dropping below freezing. The highest elevations are the safest. This is where surface crusts are thickest and least likely to break down. Safer slope characteristics are open slopes rather than rocky, very steep, constricted gullies. And of course, slopes less than 40 degrees are less likely to produce avalanches right now than more extreme, steeper terrain.

Cornices are also a current concern. In places, these cornices are large and overhanging steep slopes. 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.

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.

 As conditions change we will update this avalanche information. 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.