Northern San Juan

Sunny, warm days and cold, clear nights are consolidating our snowpack and making it harder to trigger avalanches. Still, you could trigger a slab avalanche on steep, shady slopes at upper elevations where the snowpack remains cold and dry. Avoid steep, rocky slopes above treeline where the snowpack is shallower and trigger points, like convexities and shallowly-buried rocks, are more abundant.

Safer travel can be found on sunny slopes with supportive crusts early in the day, but head for the shade if you start to sink into wet, mushy snow or if it collapses underneath you.