Gunnison
AvalancheCBAC Staff · Apr 2, 2023 · Gunnison
Weather
Strong winds above treeline and moderate winds below treeline were helping to keep snow surfaces cool today. Winds appeared to be sublimating the drifting snow more than loading. Few clouds. Spring temps.
Snowpack
Skied steep, north-facing terrain with no signs of instability. On solar aspects, crusts started to soften around 11 or noon. I didn’t see any active rollerballs or wet loose activity by the time we left at 1 p.m. I stomped around above a wind-loaded east-facing slope midday and couldn’t produce any signs of instability.
Avalanche
Several notable large avalanches that ran sometime since Evan was on Mt. Emmons yesterday morning. These likely ran during Saturday afternoon’s peak warming, or the cornice falls could have happened overnight. Plus a few older wind slabs that likely ran during Friday’s storm. -A second cornice fall in Redwell Basin, extending dirty debris further than the slide in the same area that Evan documented yesterday, and prying out a couple of slabs in the upper snowpack, ~D2.5 to D3 in size. -Several wide D2 to D2.5 storm slabs that ran on the southwest side of Schuylkill Ridge to valley floor in OBJ, snapping several trees. -A large wind slab in Peeler Basin that was triggered by cornice fall, D2.