Gunnison

A Special Avalanche Advisory is in effect from 4:30PM Friday to 5PM Sunday. Backcountry avalanche conditions are dangerous. You can easily trigger an avalanche large enough to injure or kill you on many steep slopes. You may not see obvious signs of instability like cracking or collapsing in the snow before triggering an avalanche. You can trigger an avalanche from long distances away and it can pull back onto or overrun lower-angle slopes nearby. When dealing with remotely triggered avalanches, it's important to be aware of other parties nearby, as well as steep slopes above you, even if you are in gentle or flat terrain. Safe backcountry travel this weekend means giving most slopes steeper than about 30 degrees a wide berth.

You can also trigger a smaller but still dangerous avalanche in wind-drifted snow on leewards slopes. If you trigger one of these on an east or southeast-facing slope it could step down to deeper weak layers and grow much larger.