Gunnison

Avalanche

Zach Guy · Mar 9, 2017 · Gunnison

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Weather

Weather: Warm, few/scattered thin clouds. Light winds.

Snowpack

Snowpack: On SE to S aspects NTL, there was 3″ to 10″ of very wet to slushy snow over a firm frozen crust, sliding easily steep slopes. A pit on a NE aspect NTL showed a mix of hard propagating and non-propagating results on facets below a crust about a foot deep. (ECTP22, ECTN x 3, PST 80/100 END). Above treeline, it looked like a number of suspect northeasterly slopes saw some amount of persistent slab scouring during the recent extreme wind event.

Avalanche

Avalanches: Observed about 20 skier triggered and natural wet loose avalanches, mostly D1 to D1.5 in size, although a couple were large enough to bury someone. These were primarily on steep and windsheltered E to SE to S aspects NTL. It seems higher elevations got so blasted by winds that the surface was too dense or crusted for wet concerns under today’s weather. See photos.