Gunnison

Avalanche

(Public) Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Dec 11, 2021 · Gunnison

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Weather

Cold. Car said -9 at around 9am. Upon return, car read 4 at 2pm. We observed flagging off everything above treeline all day. Obviously windy in the alpine, seeminly due west. No wind BTL on N.

Snowpack

Well, a lot of adjectives. We were walking on shady N facing aspects primarily… So, unsupportive, unconsolidated, noisy, reactive, etc. Ski pen was close to ground and boot pen was basically to ground… No surprises there.

Avalanche

We assumed that many of the recent activity in the alpine was drifted in and/ or filled back in with the last spurts of snow yesterday afternoon. However, we were confident there were many which had filled in and weren’t visible… On our little walk up Gunsight we were able to easily produce reactive results on anything and everything. Pretty much everything that was remotely steep enough to slide had already gone to ground, or at least fractured to ground. Luckily we found one switchback that was primed to go and it barely took the weight of a ski to send it to ground (see picture). Skied a few meadows on the descent and it was a symphony of whoomphs.