Gunnison

Snowpack

Toured up through Red Coon glade almost to the summit of Coon, to traverse in and explore the crown from Jan 18 avalanche. Temp on telephone pole hill at 10 am was -7C, but things warmed up quickly. 4 cm sun crust over a mix of facets on the way up. At 11am 10,000' temp was -5C with a T10 of -8C. Just under a meter of snow with moist, large facets at the ground. Experienced 1 collapse entering into a clearing with 10 people on the slope. Crown profile of the slide showed 13 cm of wet snow on the surface of the 87cm snowpack with moist, rounded snow down to 53 cm. Below was a mix of rounding facets and buried crusts with 10cms of moist 3-4mm depth hoar near the ground. Air temp at 11,800 at 2pm was +7C with calm winds and strong solar radiation. T20 was -0.5C Skied slopes adjacent to the slide with wet roller balls and some small wet loose "pushes" running within the top 10 cm of wet snow and sliding on a crust. Lower angle slopes had some crust and some wind packed snow. Near and below treeline on SW aspect had wet snow surface and junky, weak, almost trapdoor snow. See profile and photos of crown