Gunnison

Avalanche

Zach Guy · Dec 12, 2016 · Gunnison

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Weather

Weather: Broken skies, calm winds, no precip.

Snowpack

Snowpack: Hollow snowpack structure produced widespread cracking ~5 to 15 feet and localized collapsing. 12″, semi-supportive (on skis) soft slab over fist hard facets, consistent structure across all terrain that we traveled. Propagating results in ECT and PST. Small storm slab management still seems to apply here, and it felt like the slab is a little too soft/thin for avalanching or propagating on most features, except for very steep, unsupported, or wind stiffened slopes. Not much additional load needed here for widespread persistent slab issues.

Avalanche

Avalanches: We descended slopes up to ~38 degrees with no avalanche activity.