Southern San Juan

You can trigger a large avalanche if you find a shallow spot in the slab on a steep slope. The most dangerous slopes face the north half of the compass. You may not experience any signs of instability, such as cracking or collapsing, before triggering an avalanche. As such, previous tracks on a slope do not mean it won't slide.

Keep it simple by choosing planar slopes and avoiding likely trigger points, like the thinner margins of a slab, convex rollovers, and shallowly buried rocks. Warm, sunny weather increases the risk of wet avalanches, so watch out for being on or under steep, rocky, sunny slopes later in the day.