Gunnison

Avalanche

Ben Pritchett and Eric Murrow · Mar 24, 2023 · Gunnison

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Weather

Unseasonably cool. Mostly cloudy. Afternoon winds picked, with gusts beginning to drift a little snow.

Avalanche

Surprisingly we saw only one large Persistent Slab avalanche on the west side of the Sawatch Range. The avalanche released on a cross-loaded, above-treeline, southeast-facing slope near Lake Pass (on the Taylor Park side of the Continental Divide, south of Sayer's Gulch). In Spring Creek Canyon, we saw dozens of old, small Loose Wet avalanches, but no activity from the most recent storm. In the eastern end of the Elk Mountains, we saw several recent Storm Slab avalanches below corniced ridge lines on Cement Mountain, Forest Hill, American Flag, and Italian Mountain, but none that broke into old snow.