Avalanche forecast

Southeast Mountains

Crested Butte Avalanche Center
View on map

Avalanche danger

Sat
Alpine
3 · Considerable
Treeline
3 · Considerable
Below
2 · Moderate
Open full map
Out of date — this forecast expired 4 years ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

The primary avalanche problem is slowly becoming less reactive and will give fewer obvious warning signs. Don't be mistaken or become complacent as the snowpack structure remains poor in many areas. A large and potentially deadly avalanche is still likely to trigger in some terrain. You can avoid the avalanche problem through terrain selection, or slightly decrease your chance of triggering an avalanche by avoiding trigger points and wind-loaded slopes. 

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    1.5–2.5

    Storms this month have built large persistent slabs over a widespread weak layer of facets and faceted crusts. These slabs are generally 2 to 3-feet thick. The vast majority of avalanche activity has occurred on west to north to southeast aspects. While less avalanche activity has been observed on south and southwest aspects. Persistent slabs are notorious for erratic feedback and unusual behavior, such as remote triggering and wide propagation. To avoid the problem, choose routes that keep you off and out from under terrain steeper than about 30 degrees that hold old, weak snow near the ground. You can also decrease your chance of triggering an avalanche by avoiding trigger points, such as areas the snowpack thins to a below-average height in the terrain.

    This persistent slab avalanche wrapped from shady to sunny aspects and broke on weak layers near the ground. This a good example of the potential size and widely propagating behavior of our current persistent slab problem. 

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    1.5

    Northwesterly winds have built thick wind slabs on the lee sides of ridgelines and cross-loaded terrain features. This avalanche problem will dictate how you manage some southerly facing terrain, while in many other areas this avalanche problem is overlapping the more significant persistent slab avalanche problem. Consider routes that avoid the most suspect terrain and these lens-shaped snow deposits.

    Additional wind loading likely contributed to this large natural avalanche in the Climax Chutes. 

Avalanche Discussion

The likelihood of triggering the persistent slab avalanche problem continues to slowly decrease, but the potential destruction that a triggered avalanche would cause hasn't changed one bit. This is the classic conundrum we often find ourselves in here in Colorado. A slowly decreasing likelihood of a high-consequence avalanche problem. This isn't an avalanche problem you can manage by ski cuts, nor is it an avalanche problem that you have much chance to ride out of if you did trigger. If you are stepping out in your terrain choices this weekend, do so cautiously and consider the consequences of a triggered avalanche in the terrain.

The most dangerous areas are on previously wind-loaded terrain, and where the snowpack depth is variable. Those conditions are most common at near and above treeline elevations. Where the snowpack is deep and uniform you will have a slightly decreased chance that your weight will affect the weak layers near the bottom of the snowpack. Of course, where the snowpack is deeper, the potential avalanche size would also be greater. Unfortunately, something positive is met with something negative in this situation.  

The NW and the SE Mountain Forecasts have the same avalanche danger ratings at the moment, however, they differ on the size and likelihood of the primary avalanche problem. The Persistent Slab avalanche problem is larger and slightly less likely in the NW Mountains, while in the SE Mountain Forecast that problem is smaller but more likely to trigger. This is due in part to the differences in the depth of the snowpack between the two forecast areas. 

Regions covered