Gunnison

Snowpack

Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Jan 9, 2013 · Gunnison

Weather

Wx: Left the Red Lady trailhead @ just before 11am, temps in the low 30's and completely bluebird sky. T-shirt weather on the skin track up, no wind except very light breeze at ridgetop. mid-30s when we reached Slate River TH also.

Snowpack

Snowpack: Just below ridgetop, the snowpack was thin and stiff, but turned much softer about 100ft or so below the ridge. Deep enough that we did not hit any rocks in the turns, but snow depth at our first stopping point was only about 3ft deep. At that first point, pole probes seemed to indicate that the bottom-layer of facets was there, but that it was not a thick layer. Avy Activity: Prior tracks were spread across a 100ft wide swath, with no evidence of any activity. Our group skied on the skier's left of these tracks and saw no new activity either, nor did we hear or feel any collapses. This was on a mid-30deg slope. Looking from ridgetop, we also did not see any other signs of recent avalanche activity in neighboring basins.