Abajos

Snowcover is dwindling fast in the Abajo Mountains but it still remains possible to trigger a dangerous avalanche as two local snowboarders found out yesterday. Most people would not suspect this given the overall lack of snow and even bare ground on adjacent slopes. The problem is that the existing snowpack has very poor structure. This means that layers of weak, faceted snow exist underneath a dense, hard slab. The areas where you can actually find this are few and far between, but wherever snowcover exists on steep, northerly aspects, human triggered avalanches remain possible.

Two snowboarders triggered a large and dangerous avalanche on Horse Head Peak on Saturday, March 29. This could have been deadly and we are grateful that everything turned out okay. We'd like to thank the party for their thorough and thoughtful report.

The Abajo mountains still suffer from thin snowcover, and off trail recreation is difficult. What snow exists is poor in structure meaning that a dense slab exists over weak, sugary, faceted snow. This structure exists on northerly aspects that have held snow all season, and human triggered avalanches are possible in these areas. Sunny aspects have very thin to no snowcover.

Photo illustrates extremely low snow cover as well as Horse Head Bowl (center) where a recent large avalanche was triggered.

Use these links for current weather conditions.

NWS forecast for the Abajo Mountains.

Snow totals and temps at Buckboard Flat (8924')

Snow totals and temps at Camp Jackson (8858')

This forecast is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This forecast describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.