Current snow surfaces are highly variable, offering good conditions to improve your skiing and riding skills. If you are out there training, keep an eye out for areas that have a wet and/or mushy snowpack. If you find those conditions, then take the time to evaluate for wet avalanche potential or seek out colder, more stable snow. At upper elevations, old, drifted hard slabs remain an isolated concern. On Monday, just outside of the forecast area, a skier triggered one of these hard slabs on the north side of Pearl Pass.
You can trigger wet avalanches as the upper snowpack moistens or gets wet. If you find yourself sinking towards your boot tops into wet snow, consider moving to lower-angled slopes or a colder aspect. Wet loose avalanches will be most dangerous in high-consequence terrain above cliffs, trees, or gullies.
This small avalanche occurred when the snowpack became wet.
Slabs up to several feet thick have become isolated and difficult to trigger, but remain a concern on a few previously wind-drifted slopes. You are unlikely to see signs of instability before triggering an avalanche that breaks on old weak layers. The most concerning terrain features are where old, drifted slabs are thin near their margins, convexities, or rocky areas. You can reliably avoid the problem on slope angles less than 30 degrees without steeper slopes above you, and wind-protected terrain generally lacks the problem.
This slab avalanche was observed yesterday on the northern side of Mt Wetstone. It's estimated to have been triggered by wet loose avalanche releasing from the easterly slope to the right.
MODERATE avalanche danger was held for below treeline elevations after low temperatures didn't drop below freezing at valley elevations such as Crested Butte and Gothic. Snow surfaces will still be frozen this morning thanks to radial cooling last night and the partly cloudy sky. Once those surface crusts break down today, some slopes will return to a wet and mushy state. Those slopes will probably not continue to produce wet loose avalanches unless we also see some good solar input this morning and/or during the day. Previously, we didn't have low-elevation southerly slopes on the problem list as there were several mid-pack crusts holding back the size of loose wet avalanches; those crusts have now broken down after multiple days of warm weather.
Higher elevations saw a better freeze last night, with 11,000ft temperatures dropping into the high 20's. While temperatures will climb back above freezing at those higher elevations today, developing cloud cover and/or elevated winds are expected to keep snow surfaces cool across most slopes. A few isolated exceptions can of course, be expected. If cloud cover doesn't develop today, and you find yourself on a warm slope with a few inches of wet snow, then take the time to evaluate for potential wet avalanche activity.
The persistent slab problem rose finally received a trimming. Lingering concerns for slab avalanches continue, where very old hard slabs were deposited by previous wind events. We saw a couple of slab avalanches released on Whetstone from the warming event on Monday. Now, similar concerns have decreased as we move away from the initial warmup, and temperatures have cooled. Also, on Monday, a skier just outside of our forecast area triggered a hard slab on the north side of Pearl Pass. This avalanche is a great example of a current problem that can still be found on a few slopes today, though they will continue to be difficult to trigger and will require just the right trigger point.
