Southern San Juan

A Special Avalanche Advisory is in effect for the southern San Juan Mountains from the La Plata Mountains eastward to Wolf Creek Pass, and areas surrounding Cumbres and La Manga Passes. Though slowly decreasing, the avalanche danger remains elevated after a potent storm created very dangerous avalanche conditions. You can easily trigger avalanches large enough to bury you and some may grow very large in size.

We are on the tail end of a big storm that produced large and destructive avalanches. Obvious signs of unstable snow will decrease quickly but that doesn't mean the snowpack has adjusted to the heavy load. You can trigger large and wide avalanches that break within all of the storm snow. These avalanches will be big and can easily step down to older layers resulting in a hard-to-survive avalanche. Although the most dangerous conditions are on north through easterly slopes where winds continue to drift snow and load slopes, many slopes are dangerous right now.