Save the date!
CBAC’s Annual Avalanche Awareness Night is set for December 7, 2024 at the Center for the Arts. We’re rolling out a new format this year: first half education, second half PARTY! More details to come.
2023-24 Annual Report
The season was a mixed bag of emotions for all of us at the CBAC and in the community. While it was another great season of skiing and riding, we were hit hard by the loss of two friends to the mountains. Our 24th season forecasting for the Gunnison Valley was defined by two treacherous weak layers – the source of challenging, unique, and tragic persistent slab issues. The report also highlights successes from our outreach and operations and recognizes the many partners and sponsors who support the CBAC.
To read the full annual report, visit this link or use the pdf viewer below.
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CBAC 2022/23 Annual Report
CBAC’s 2021/22 Annual Report is available to view or download here. The report relives one of the biggest winters of this century, along with the outreach and operational accomplishments of the CBAC. We also recognize the many sponsors, donors, and partners who are critical to our mission. Thank you!
CBAC 2021/22 Annual Report
CBAC’s 2021/22 Annual Report is available for download here or in the PDF viewer below. The report relives a winter of feast or famine and highlights the outreach and operational accomplishments of the CBAC. We also recognize the many sponsors, donors, and partners who are critical to our mission. Thank you!
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Observation contest winner!
Thanks to everyone for coming out to our appreciation party at the Talk of the Town last Friday! Congrats to Travis Colbert, who won the observation contest earning himself a new pair of Weston skis for submitting the most observations this season.
IT’S SNOWING! Have fun, stay safe.
CBAC featured in Backcountry Magazine
The CBAC is featured in this month’s Backcountry Magazine, in an article that highlights the history and current operations of our local avalanche center. You can read the issue here.
2020-21 CBAC Annual Report
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Our annual report recaps the horrific snowpack last winter, and how CBAC combated the deadly winter through its operations and outreach efforts. The report also details our user analytics, finances, and outlines goals for next season. Huge thank you to all of our sponsors, donors, and partners who make our efforts possible.
New forecast platform
We have a few exciting changes to announce as we gear up for winter, including a new forecast platform and new forecast zones!
Forecast Platform
We are adopting the National Avalanche Center’s new forecast platform. The new platform has some great upgrades for our users to help us better communicate our safety messages to you.
- It’s mobile-friendly. More and more of our users are now accessing the forecast from their phones. The new forecast pages will now adjust to fit your phone or tablet, making it easier to read our forecasts on the go.
- Better media. We now have the ability to add photos, videos, and captions within portions of the forecast to help illustrate avalanche problems or travel advice more clearly to you.
- Bottom line and problem descriptions. While the basic layout of the forecast page will look similar to years past, this platform allows us to add a bottom line and problem descriptions. The bottom line will highlight the key points of the forecast, and the problem descriptions allow us to provide dynamic travel advice for each avalanche problem as conditions evolve.
- Conditions blog. We’re experimenting with a “Conditions Blog” tab that can accompany the forecasts. This is where we will provide weekly summaries and bonus material that supplements the forecast. More info for you at your fingertips!
- Consistency. There are about 8 or 9 other avalanche centers around the country that are adopting the same platform. If you go skiing or riding in the Sawtooths, or Cascades, or Sierras, or any number of other mountain regions around the West, you can expect to see avalanche information presented in the same format as ours. That makes it easier for you to digest the info and communicate with your partners.
New Forecast Zones
This map, which lives on our homepage, will show the daily avalanche danger rating for each of the two forecast zones. Clicking on a forecast zone will lead you straight to the forecast.
As most of our regular users know, the Crested Butte backcountry often develops into distinct snow climates: one with a deeper snowpack to the west and north of town, and one with a shallower snowpack near, east, and south of town. In the past, we often use the text to describe nuances between the snow-favored parts of the forecast area and the drier parts of the forecast area. Now, with our new forecast platform, we are integrating two forecast zones: the Northwest Mountains and Southeast Mountains. This change allows our forecasters to better highlight spatial differences in the avalanche danger, travel advice, or size and distribution of avalanche problems. We divided the zones based on our historical understanding of where the deeper and shallower snowpacks commonly develop. Our homepage has a map of the forecast zones to reference these boundaries. The Northwest Mountains include the snow belts of the Anthracite Range, Kebler Pass, Ruby Range, and Paradise Divide. The Southeast Mountains include the drier parts of our forecast area such as Cement Creek, Brush Creek, the Gothic area, and some terrain close to town such as Red Lady Bowl, Climax Chutes, Coneys, and Snodgrass. Our forecast team expects that there will be plenty of days where the forecasts for each zone will be exactly the same. However, there will also be days where we highlight important differences. For you, it’s simple. Click on the forecast map or select the forecast zone for the region that you plan to travel in for the day. That will lead you to the most current and relevant information. Our detailed forecast discussion will be the same across both forecast zones to simplify the material for those folks who enjoy following the progression of the snowpack on a daily basis. And as a reminder, these are regional forecasts that generalize conditions across a large area. Although they should serve as a starting point for planning your day, you are responsible for assessing conditions on a slope by slope basis to minimize your avalanche risk.
Feel free to shoot us a message if you have questions about any of these changes! cbavalanche@gmail.com
Zach Guy
CBAC Lead Forecaster
Welcome Ben Pritchett as the new ED and Lead forecaster for CBAC!
It comes with a heavy heart to announce I’m moving on from the Crested Butte Avalanche Center to take on a new role as the director of the Flathead Avalanche Center. I’m looking forward to an opportunity for personal and professional growth in Montana. I’m grateful for the strong sense of community here that has made this place my home, both in town and in the backcountry. Our mountain town is unique in how our backcountry users respect and look out for each other, and this energy is what has helped our little avalanche center thrive and grow to what it is. Your observations, support, and donations help to make the CBAC one of the best forecast centers in the country. Thank you for that, Gunnison Valley, and I hope that is something that won’t change here as the backcountry evolves and becomes more crowded.
I’m excited to announce our new executive director and lead forecaster: Ben Pritchett. Ben brings a broad skill-set and diverse experience in the avalanche industry to the CBAC. In the past 12 years, Ben has served as the program coordinator for AIARE and avalanche education coordinator for the CAIC, gaining valuable experience working with backcountry users, educators, and forecasters around the country. Ben is a former forecaster for the CBAC and leads the forecasting program for the Grand Traverse. He also owns and runs a backcountry guiding business here in Crested Butte. Ben’s industry connections and local understanding of our terrain, weather, and snowpack will contribute to the quality of our forecast products.
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| Ben at the 2017 Grand Traverse |
Over the past 5 years, I have poured my heart into making this center the best it could be. One of the hardest parts about leaving the CBAC was my sense of investment here and the fear of leaving the center high and dry on my way out. The folks at the Flathead Avalanche Center were patiently willing to negotiate for a delayed start date which helped us conduct a thorough interview and hand-off process, and I’m glad we landed Ben. Evan and Ian are two of the most dedicated and passionate forecasters I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and they are both planning on returning next year. We brought on a new development director this past fall, Karen Williams, who has been working with us to improve our fundraising and outreach. And with Ben joining the team, I know now that the CBAC is in good hands moving towards a promising future with the goal of educating our community and saving lives from avalanche hazards.
Sincerely,
Zach Guy
A letter of protest to surface hoar
Dear Surface Hoar,
First you bedazzled us with your shimmering feathers, glistening under the cloud layers that brought our unusual surface hoar event back in mid-January. You are fragile and don’t belong in Colorado’s windy and sunny environment. We thought to ourselves, “You’re a long shot, surely you won’t survive.” But somehow you did. Things started to go downhill on January 19th, when you got buried beneath a storm that came without wind, against the odds.
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| Unusual cloud layers and unusually widespread surface hoar layer in mid January. Photo courtesy of MSF Films |
Then more snow came, and it formed a soft slab above you, and your behavior started getting erratic through the last week of January. We saw lots of natural avalanches, we saw avalanches breaking in dense aspen groves and on low angle slopes, and we saw slides remotely triggered from flat terrain.
Video demonstrating the touchy and unusual avalanche behavior in late January.
It has been 2 weeks since the last storm, and we have heard about slides triggered on you almost every single day, either in our zone or our neighboring Aspen zone. There were a number of close calls and partial burials on the Aspen side.
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| A slide on Mt. Emmons that caught a skier off guard. |
Things have started to quiet down this past week, and travelers are starting to let their guard down. But with more snow on the way this week, we can’t trust you and your unruly and dangerous behavior. It will become more sporadic and less predictable.
Video explaining our current snowpack structure on northerly/easterly aspects
I can’t recall the last time we had someone like you as widespread and troublesome in our snowpack. Granted, a lot of things have changed in the past few weeks for the better, and we are thankful for that. A lot of slopes have flushed. Winds have blasted you and their overlying slabs away in places. The sun has capped the snowpack with a stout crust on other slopes. So now you are lurking on fewer slopes, but now the slabs above you will be growing thicker and more dangerous, and you will become more volatile again as more snow and wind prod at you. We will see skiers and snowmobilers recreate on a lot of slopes with no apparent sign of problems from you, and our focus will be on freshly formed but manageable storm instabilities. But then somewhere you will react harshly as you buckle under increasing pressure, or someone pokes your small feathers on the wrong slope, and it will be bad news for everyone involved. We know where you are most likely to be bothered, and that happens to be our favorite riding areas, northerly and easterly aspects near and below treeline. But we can’t know for sure where or when you will strike next. That scares us.
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| Most of the persistent slab avalanche activity in late January was on surface hoar. Read this observation for some caveats to this diagram. |
At the CBAC, we ask that you resign from causing problems in our snowpack, and move back to Canada, where you belong.
Sincerely,
Zach Guy
Director of CBAC