Gunnison
AvalancheZach Guy · Mar 2, 2015 · Gunnison
Weather
Warm. Periods of very light snow. Moderate southwest ridgetop winds with moderate snow transport. Overcast skies.
Snowpack
Last night’s snow was dense and top heavy. Lots of tree bombing today and southerly surfaces became moist. On north aspects near/below treeline, about 70-90 cm of 4F to F hard snow down to our fist hard, mid-February facet layer. All facets below that.
Avalanche
Most impressive avalanche cycle I’ve ever seen on Axtell. Slides in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th bowls that all ran yesterday or today. The last 4 ran wall-to-wall, up to 2,000 feet wide and most running 1,500 – 2,000 vertical to valley floor. These were N/ATL on N/NE/E aspects, with one wrapping to SE.. All crowns were 2-3 feet deep, failing on the same near surface facet layer buried mid-February and gouged to the ground in places. With the exception of a D2 in 1st Bowl (BTL), the remainder were all D2.5 to D3′s (N/ATL). Two (maybe 3?) were triggered remotely by a party in front of us from the ridge. The other three were naturals. We also remotely triggered a narrow D2 that ran to valley floor.