Gunnison

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg, Ben Pritchett · Mar 23, 2021 · Gunnison

Weather

Skies were obscured most of the day with some clearing by 3 PM

Snowpack

On east-facing steep slopes on the Red Lady Basin subridge we were able to push snow and trigger very small, very thin and harmless slabs. Not a problem for now but on these east-facing slopes and south-facing slopes (where we observed small cracks), there is weak faceted snow on top of a shallowly buried crust. In north-facing Redwell Basin, we found 25 cm of snow on top of a very thin crust. No signs of instability observed. On the exit from Wolverine Basin, we found the weakest and shallowest snowpack of the day with a total snow height of 80 to 100 cm of mostly faceted snow on north-facing low-elevation slopes. The upper snowpack was particularly weak and we were able to trigger a couple small sluffs in the weak surface snow. Overall, observed issues were in the upper snowpack and mostly concerns for any future significant future snowfall. Recent small snowfalls have led to a complex upper snowpack with a variety of crusts, thin and thick layers of faceted snow, and a buried dust layer. No issues were found related to current snowpack stability.