Gunnison
SnowpackCrested Butte Avalanche Center · Mar 17, 2013 · Gunnison
Weather
WEATHER: Warm, snowing most of day, at times S5, increasing winds throughout day from W/NW transporting lots of snow and obscuring visibility.
Snowpack
SNOWPACK: In a.m. found 15cm low density storm snow over a supportive MF crust. By mid-afternoon HS was up to 25cm and gaining cohesion with warming temps and wind. Multiple laps throughout the day on the same lee slope to the wind in the 35* range, observed increasing wind slab development, reactivity, propagation, and cohesion throughout the day. Only within the storm snow, but becoming increasingly more hazardous to manage with increasing winds, wind slab depth, and dropping visibility by 1500. Overall, found poor bonding of storm snow to old MF crust on surface, increasing wind slabs throughout day, but predictable and manageable and only involving upper storm snow layers, but definite avy danger rising by afternoon. Day started with 15cm of blower low density snow on a firm, smooth, supportive MF crust. Each lap, consistently deeper skiing but increasing wind slab development at top as well. Lap 1: loose snow sluffing. Lap 2: Small pockets of windslab 20cm deep, 20' wide, 50' long. Lap 3: Windslab propagation of 40' and 40cm deep, though still not moving far downslope. Lap 4: more of the same..... By 1300 25cm of new snow found in middle of bowl and still snowing and blowing.