Gunnison
AvalancheCBAC Staff · Jan 28, 2025 · Gunnison
Snowpack
The total snowpack height varied between 80cm and 120cm. The snowpack increased with elevation and/or on lower-angled slopes. Steep slopes near 40 degrees often had a weak, cohesionless snowpack. In some places, weak snow is capped by hard windboard. We didn't find any areas that had enough slab to be reactive over those facets, but we did steer around a couple of terrain features where we couldn't assess the potential for a more notable hard slab. The most suspect terrain features for a potential hard slab were often concave in shape or on ribs in the terrain that were prominent enough to catch cross-loading.
Avalanche
On steep slopes near 40 degrees, loose dry avalanches were often easy to trigger and were entraining most of the snowpack. We were traveling on benched terrain, so sluffs couldn't run far and stayed small in size. Some slopes also had old wind effects that eliminated the potential for sluffs.