Gunnison

Avalanche

Kreston Rohrig · Feb 7, 2018 · Gunnison

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Weather

Clear skies with warm temps on solar aspects. Winds were light to moderate near ridgeline.

Snowpack

Varying heights based on elevation and wind-transporting snow. Windward slopes were being stripped as drifts were forming on the lee. Solar aspects at lower elevation did get slightly cooked and a small razor crust had formed as the day cooled. In protected areas, new storm snow ranged from 8-12".

Avalanche

We remotely triggered a R2-D2 avalanche descending along the top of a gullied feature below-treeline. This was the east facing wall of the gully lower in the Emmons Meadows. The avalanche failed on an old melt freeze/facet layer 30cm down. Many other loose avalanches and a couple storm slab avalanches were observed on higher elevation east facing slopes.