Bollettino valanghe

Southeast Mountains

Crested Butte Avalanche Center
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In sintesi

Weeks of dry weather and recent wind erosion have eliminated the threat of avalanches on most slopes.  Isolated exceptions exist: they're most commonly easy to identify as smooth, thin hard slabs in concave features or behind abrupt transitions in the terrain.  Stay alert and steer around these features in high-consequence terrain; a skier triggered one of these pockets yesterday.  You'll find safer, higher-quality riding where the snow surface is soft from wind protection or wind erosion.      

Problemi valanghivi

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alta quota
    • Limite del bosco
    • Sotto il limite del bosco
    Probabilità
    Unlikely
    Dimensione
    1–2

    Instabilities involving old slabs breaking on old weak layers are rare due to slab faceting and wind erosion.  There is still a lingering threat of triggering a slab that fails 1.5 to 3 feet deep on depth hoar, facets, and faceted crusts without obvious warning signs.  In the Southeast Mountains, slabs are most likely to be triggered in terrain where slabs are more cohesive from previous windloading. The most reliable way to manage this problem is by choosing slope angles less than 30 degrees.  Wind-eroded and wind-protected terrain offers a safer snowpack where slabs are typically lacking.  

    A persistent slab avalanche that likely failed during the recent wind event (1/16 to 1/17)

    Photo: Crested Butte Avalanche Center

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alta quota
    • Limite del bosco
    • Sotto il limite del bosco
    Probabilità
    Unlikely
    Dimensione
    1–1.5

    Strong to extreme northerly winds last week formed thin, hard slabs on features that collected drifting snow. The wind event mixed down to mid and low elevations, cross-drifting relatively small slabs onto weak, faceted snow surfaces - most commonly on the shady side of the compass where there was more snow available for transport and on higher southerly aspects.  These slabs will stand out as smooth, hard, lens-shaped snow formations, next to wind-eroded areas or softer, wind-rippled snow surfaces.  Although they are typically stubborn to trigger now, skirt around these harder drifts in consequential terrain to avoid the threat of getting pushed into trees, rocks, or gullies.  

    A skier triggered wind slab on Tuesday.  Previous crossloading formed a thin, hard slab over facets.  (1/20/2026) Photo: Crested Butte Avalanche Center

Avalanche Discussion

Last week's wind events scoured into existing snowpacks to find transportable snow and redistributed some of it into pockets of thin hard slabs on various aspects around the compass and at all elevations.  The dominant wind direction during the culmination of extreme winds on Friday and Saturday was out of the northwest, and we've trimmed the wind slab rose to highlight the aspects that most commonly caught drifting over weak snow surfaces.  You can certainly find these drifts on other aspects as well.  It's easiest to simply read the snow surface and look for the obvious hard lenses of snow in concavities or other catchments that collected the drifts to identify the problem.  Yesterday's skier-triggered wind slab demonstrates that even though most drifts are difficult to trigger now, they remain a threat in consequential terrain, especially where they formed over facets on the colder aspects.  

Persistent slabs breaking in old December and November weak layers have become unlikely.  The combination of nearly two weeks of dry weather, along with more recent wind erosion events, has made the issue increasingly isolated and stubborn.  The thinner snowpack in the Southeast Mountains is more prone to losing slabs from both faceting and wind erosion, and we have higher confidence that the danger is lower there.  This video demonstrates the typical situation.  The threat of a persistent slab is also diminishing in the Northwest Mountains, though the large potential size for isolated instabilities is currently dictating our travel advice.  This persistent slab that ran around Saturday demonstrates the type of features that are most concerning: slopes on shadier aspects with poor structure that saw loading (rather than erosion) during the weekend wind extravaganza.  If you look at the zoomed-out photo of the terrain, you can see that most slopes in that basin have raised tracks and sastrugi, an indication of wind erosion. Yet a few features behind tree fences and in concavities caught drifting instead.  Be careful of those types of slopes on larger, steeper terrain.  

Upcoming Outreach Events:  

Fireside Chat:  Jan 23, Dave Scheefer "Historical avalanches in Gunnison County."  Mallardi Theatre 5-7 pm.

Trailhead Day: Jan 24, Slate River, 10 am-2 pm.

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