Gunnison
AvalancheCrested Butte Avalanche Center · Feb 11, 2018 · Gunnison
Weather
Weather: Light breeze, sunny, 25 degrees
Snowpack
Snowpack: Upon hitting the ridgeline with southern exposure we noticed a strong sun crust on the 1/20 interface and the new snow was sliding underfoot
Avalanche
Avalanches: Our main goal of the day was to look at the belly of the beast firsthand. We could have chosen more conservative terrain as we normally do and plenty of other options existed for our day. We wanted to get a pit profile a pitch or two down First Bowl. We skied one short pitch and regrouped in the trees. During the second pitch we skier triggered a PS-ASu-R2.5-D2-G. We estimate the crown height to be 100cm and 15 meters wide. The slide ran 275m, a majority of the slope to the next rollover. It was triggered about 11,100, 100 feet or so below the ridgeline. The slide broke about 10m above the skier and skier 2 was located just below the crown, both skiers we able to ski out of the hazard. Given we both wanted to look at this terrain firsthand we got a big result. I want to attribute our safety and getting out without injury due to our communication verbal and radio, skiing short pitches within verbal range and choosing good islands of safety. The new snow from 2/10 was certainly a tipping point for our weak snowpack structure.