Northwest Mountains

Generally safe avalanche conditions and beautiful weather will make for another great day to enjoy the mountains.  Don't get complacent in consequential terrain: you can still find trouble if a small avalanche drags you into rocks or trees. Several small sluffs and slabs were triggered over the holiday weekend.

We are just under a week since our last snowfall. The character of avalanches reported since then has evolved from small wind slabs early last week to more commonly small dry loose avalanches in the past few days.  On shady aspects, the snow surface continues to facet and weaken: slabs are slowly decaying while facet sluffs are becoming more of an issue.   We've added dry loose avalanches to the problem list for the Southeast Mountains, where a decaying snowpack has been most pronounced, specifically on slopes closer to the strong Crested Butte inversions.   If you are sinking through sugary snow past your boot tops, anticipate triggering a facet sluff in terrain steeper than about 38 degrees. You can use defensive riding techniques like ski cuts to manage the problem.      The current dry weather pattern is also allowing those pesky weak layers near the ground on northerly aspects to adjust to their overburden in conjunction with slabs continuing to lose strength from faceting.  The persistent slab problem that we've been highlighting for weeks is becoming very difficult to find and trigger, and we are shifting it off of the problem list.  If there are any lingering exceptions, they will likely be on steep, unsupported, windloaded terrain features that face north or northeast, similar to the small persistent slab triggered on Friday.  

Mark your calendars! December 4th is CBAC's Virtual Avalanche Awareness Night.  A party and educational event, the likes of which you've never seen before.