Gunnison
AvalancheIan Havlick · Jan 17, 2016 · Gunnison
Weather
Light to moderate snow during tour 9-12am. Moderate to strong west-northwesterly winds all day near and above treeline. Patches of sun toward midday and temps in 20s
Snowpack
Deeeep. 20" of new snow and bottomless. Westerly winds were stripping snow efficiently off west and northwest facing terrain and loading onto east bowl and Lee aspects. Drifts were 6-8ft in trees and waist deep across standard ski track above 7th bowl. Anywhere the wind didn't touch was very uncnsolidated and lacked any slab. However, more wind exposed areas had 4f hard slabs, obvious scalloping, growing cornices.
Avalanche
SE facing bowl on other side of ridge from 7th bowl slid naturally and we may have remotely triggered another pocket in same feature while skinning above. Slab looked 2ft deep and slid unimpressively into pungeys below (400ft). SS-ASr-R2-D1.5-I AND SS-N-R3-D2-I. Widespread but shallow storm instability looked to have run early morning , fractured as slabs but ran as stuffs. Harmless.