Gunnison
AvalancheEric Murrow · Nov 26, 2021 · Gunnison
Weather
Beautiful Thanksgiving day. Temperatures rebounded quickly in the AM and winds remained light even at treeline on an exposed ridge. Storm total from the previous day was around 8 inches.
Snowpack
While traveling around a drifted easterly ridgeline, I found mostly soft drifts up to 18 inches thick. Did not experience any cracking or collapsing, but I avoided suspect terrain features with the most significant drifting. On easterly slopes near treeline, the recently drifted storm snow was resting on a fairly soft, 1-2cm melt/freeze crust. This crust was resting on fist-hard, faceted snow. A generally poor-looking structure particularly if you found a slope with a thick drift resting above. While descending below treeline I traveled through northeasterly terrain looking to see if I could produce Dry Loose avalanches but the storm snow has not faceted enough yet to produce any significant sluffing.
Avalanche
Observed a couple of natural avalanches that likely ran on Wednesday 11/24. Slab avalanches were above treeline in drifted terrain facing east or southeast. Appeared to only involve the most recent storm snow.