If you are looking to take advantage of the late-season snow and catch one more day in Colorado’s backcountry, you should be careful. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center is warning of “considerable” avalanche danger for the northern mountains on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Dangerous avalanche conditions. Careful snowpack evaluation, cautious route-finding and conservative decision-making essential,” the CAIC issue said.
The foot of snow which has blanketed some of Colorado’s high country can sit on old crusty snow and slide. Those slides are sometimes powerful enough to bury a person. There are actually several types of avalanches that are all possible under current conditions; storm snow, wind slab and wet avalanches. These could trigger naturally, even from the sun.
“Tuesday starts cold and snowy, with storm snow avalanches as the primary problem on your radar. Look for deeper areas of wind-drifted snow as possible trigger points, especially on slopes steeper than 30 degrees,” Mike Floyd from CAIC said. “You are most likely to encounter this problem at upper elevations where there is a firm, frozen surface underneath. As the storm winds down and temperatures rise, watch for rapidly increasing instability. If you see natural wet avalanches or snowballs rolling out of steep, rocky areas, this is a good indicator that instability is increasing. If the sun comes out, this could happen in a matter of minutes. To mitigate wet avalanche concerns, start and end your day early.”
The conditions are ranked at a level three danger on a scale of one to five.
The 2020-21 avalanche season was particularly bad as 19 people were caught, 14 were buried and 12 were killed. Unstable snowpack throughout the winter caused the poor conditions.
"danger" - Google News
May 11, 2021 at 09:22PM
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Considerable avalanche danger in Colorado after May storm, officials warn - The Denver Post
"danger" - Google News
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