Southeast Mountains

You can trigger Dry Loose avalanches, "facet sluffs", on shaded slopes near and below treeline.  For terrain very near Crested Butte, the Southeast Mountains, these avalanches have the ability to entrain most of the meager, shallow snowpack.  Slopes further out drainages, like in the Northwest Mountains,  triggered "facet sluffs", are expected to only involve the upper 6 to 8 inches of the snowpack.  This difference puts the Southeast Mountains at MODERATE danger and the Northwest Mountains at LOW danger.  You can identify slopes with increased concern by the lack of support that the snowpack provides to skis, board, or foot.  Slopes steeper than about 37 degrees will require you to manage the loose avalanche problem to prevent being pushed into rocks, trees, or stumps.  

The shallow snowpack around Crested Butte has been weakened and faceted by cold temperatures and valley inversions.  This faceted snowpack has produced human-triggered loose avalanches for the past week.  The largest of these avalanches have occurred in terrain close to Crested Butte where strong valley inversions have created a cohesionless snowpack the lacks any kind of support.  You can check out some observations of this avalanche activity in these observations from Happy Chutes and Climax Chutes.  Although avalanches have been on the smaller side, they pack enough punch to take you for a nasty ride through rocks, trees, or cliffs.  Observations from the past week out of the Northwest Mountains have shown the Dry Loose avalanche problem to be even smaller, involving just the surface snow.  Beneath the weak surface often lies a more supportive base that prevents loose avalanches from gouging to the ground.  You can look at these observations from the Northwest Mountains to better understand the problem where the snowpack is a bit stronger (Schuylkill Ridge, above Pittsburg, Purple Palace, and Anthracites).  You can manage this problem by performing ski cuts to flush snow prior to descending to get a feel for how the snow will behave, choose terrain less than about 37 degrees where loose avalanches are far less likely to initiate or recreate on southerly-facing aspects where the problem is not commonly found.  The snowpack in alpine terrain is denser than slopes at low elevations and offers a significantly reduced chance of encountering the Dry Loose avalanche problem.   "Facet sluffs" are a clear indication of very weak snow surfaces that will not accept a new loading event without causing avalanches.  As you may have noticed, a storm is forecasted to impact the area on Friday.  Although the size of this storm is a bit uncertain, you should anticipate that starting on Friday avalanche conditions are likely to change dramatically.  Today's "facet sluffs" are almost certainly going to become a nasty persistent weak layer that you will need to manage well into the future.  If slabs develop with Friday's storm, then you will need to change your travel habits and terrain choices to stay safe.  I have decided to front-load this message two days before the storm because snow surfaces are truly weak, the avalanche hazard will rise for the weekend when lots of people are looking to recreate, and after a prolonged dry spell, all of us will be frothing for a taste of winter.