Gunnison

Avalanche

Ben Pritchett and Eric Murrow · Mar 5, 2024 · Gunnison

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Weather

Broken skies became Overcast the Obscured by mid-morning. Felt greenhouse-like. Cloudy, warm, high radiation day. Light snow mid-morning into mid afternoon.

Snowpack

Targeting freshly loaded slopes: Dug east-southeast near treeline in a drifted spot (HS about 370cm). Crust/facets were too deep to be a concern in this location. Targeting shallow spots: Dug west near treeline in a shallow spot (HS about 120cm). ECTN, PST 60% on mid-pack facets. It seems you'd have to find a real shallow spot to trigger anything. Targeting buried surface hoar: Dug east (HS ~175cm), 9700' looking for buried SH, found it down 80cm. ECTN, didn't propagate even with the slab removed in test. All in all, the deep area is looking pretty strong.

Avalanche

Only saw one avalanche on the Shield in Redwell Basin. That slope was scoured by northerly winds early this winter, then loaded heavily by the recent west-southwest winds.