Sangre de Cristo

Warming temperatures and ample sunshine will warm the most recent storm snow. Loose avalanche activity is most likely on steep, sunny, and rocky slopes. The chance of natural and human-triggered avalanches rises throughout the day. Avoid steep slopes that show signs of warming like rollerballs, pinwheels, or recent avalanche activity on similar slopes.

You can also trigger avalanches in dry snow on steep slopes where you find more than around a foot of recently fallen snow. The new snow loads will test buried weak layers and an avalanche could break deeply into old snow. Steep northerly and easterly slopes have been the most recent culprits for larger avalanches that were triggered from a shallow area. To dodge this problem, avoid slopes steeper than 35 degrees altogether.