Gunnison
AvalancheEvan Ross · Nov 19, 2014 · Gunnison
Weather
Cold temps throughout the day. Clear sky with enough solar to warm the snow surface slightly on South and West aspects. Moderate Northwest winds at ridge tops were blowing around what little snow is left for transport.
Snowpack
At all elevations the snow surface is loosing strength due to the near surface faceting process and will be something to watch out for when we get our next storm. Above 10,500ft the snowpack was generally 40-60cm deep. South and Southeast slopes held a generally stable snowpack with last weekends storm snow resting on mostly bare ground on South, and on Southeast there was a thin pencil hard layer of 1-2mm facets mixed with melt form grains above 11,000ft. Test pits on these aspects between 11,000-11,500ft produced no results. On East aspects above 11,000 feet the 11/13-15 storm snow was sitting on fist hard 1-2mm facets, about 5-10cm thick. These slopes had an obvious strong over weak punch to them when using a ski pole or probe. We simply avoided these strong over weak areas.
Avalanche
Noticed several persistent slabs that failed during the 11/13-15 storm on weak faceted snow from earlier this season. The slabs failed on Northeast slopes between 11,000-12,400ft and were in the D2 range.