Gunnison

Snowpack

This area wasn't as impacted by the Christmas wind event as other areas I've traveled. Wind-drifted hard slabs were very rare and thin (3"-5") across the high terrain. Older slabs from the early December storm are largely faceted away by now; in steep terrain, it was easy to shove a ski pole to the ground in most places, while ski pen is still holding up. There were a few areas of discontinuous 1F midpack still remaining. The upper snowpack is weak; ski pen is 6" to 15" in soft faceted snow (~1mm facets), but there's enough wind effect or surface crusts to prevent sluffing here. East aspects held soft, collapsible sun crusts above the facets. A few concave features held stiffer wind board or thin hard slab from the Christmas winds that were unreactive underfoot.