Gunnison

Snowpack

Toured up Schuylkill Ridge with a first plan to ski SW to SE faces and secondary plan to ski NE shots down into the Slate. Left the trailhead about 8:30am, with temps still sitting just below zero. Wx: Not really that cold once we got moving. Overcast skies, very little wind and no visible snow transport anywhere. We did see evidence of wind transport from the prior evening, with winds from the SW blowing snow into the skin track on heart attack ridge and forming about a 1" hard layer up on the ridge. Snowpack: No new snow since the most recent storm, although the new snow (yeah!) was moving in when we hit the car back at the TH. We skied a SE aspect up to 40 deg from the ridge to the valley floor. Snow up top was 6-8" ski pen, good turns. Down lower, the snow was definitely a firmer, more sun-affected crust below (although no one's seen the sun in a while?). Avy activity: our group heard a couple of collapses at the ridge top, but saw no visible signs of avalanche activity. On the skin track up, there were numerous old crowns visible from the skin track. We tried to kick off a couple of snall cornices at the ridge, but even that was tough. We saw no new avy activity from the ridgeline, with the exception of what looked like avy debris in Redwell from a NW aspect (seen this one run before - right below the top of Red Lady from the rock bands below).