Northwest Mountains

Most slopes are generally safe from avalanches and require normal caution while staying alert for isolated exceptions. If you are traveling on steep northerly facing slopes, you could encounter small dry loose avalanches. Manage these sluffs in high-consequence terrain by riding away from the fall line or choosing mellower slope angles.

Aside from small, loose snow avalanches, recent avalanche conditions have been quiet in the forecast area. Dry loose avalanches have been ongoing through the dry weather, while wet loose avalanche activity peaked on February 5th and 6th. Normal caution travel advice has been fitting well across the forecast area recently, and even though there has been dry weather for a couple of weeks now, there is still some nice skiing and riding out there if you search for wind and sun protected terrain. 

Triggering a slab avalanche has become increasingly rare due to two weeks of dry, warm weather. We suspect any lingering concerns are most likely to be found towards the east end of our forecast area, where thin, hard slabs formed over an exceptionally thin, weak snowpack.  A forecaster demonstrated the problem on 1/31 in Upper Cement, that part of our forecast area that most closely mirrors ongoing persistent slab issues in the Sawatch Range (Example A, Example B), or this observation noting a collapse on a stiff wind pillow near Pearl Pass. 

The snowpack across Colorado is at a record low, while here in the Gunnison River Basin, the data is reporting that we are just barely above the record low. If there were no changes, the Gunnison River Basin would tie the record low on February 11th. However, changes are coming, and they just so happen to arrive on the 11th! Accumulating snow is forecast to begin on Wednesday, then ramp up on Wednesday night. The avalanche danger will increase during the same time and will remain elevated after the storm due to persistent weak layers in the snowpack.