Gunnison

Snowpack

John MacKinnon · Feb 17, 2012 · Gunnison

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Weather

Mild and sunny day with FEW clouds, light west winds and strong solar radiation in PM. Airtemp of -2.0 at 3 pm.

Snowpack

Profile on east trending meadow showed HS of 109cm with bottom 41 cm still large advanced facets and depth hoar. Basal facets and depth hoar showing some rounding, but still F hard snow with much stronger snow above. Recent storm snow has settled into 20 cm of 4F+ soft slab. A tilt test revealed a small layer of buried surface facets down 13 cm. TT showed a SP fracture on 0.5 mm facets. A small melt-freeze crust capped with 2.0 mm near surface facets make up top 5 cm of snowpack. See attached profile. We did get one large collapse while approaching the slope we were planning on digging on.