Gunnison
AvalancheKreston Rohrig, Zach Guy · Feb 1, 2025 · Gunnison
Weather
Mostly cloudy with a few brief glimpses of the sun.
Snowpack
As mentioned above, recent winds have reduced the size and sensitivity of the Loose Dry avalanche problem by creating a patchwork of harder wind-skins or slabs across open slopes. Truly sheltered areas are weak and faceted top-to-bottom and still produced small sluffs when you pushed hard and generated a little mass. We dug on a north slope around 11450' and found some lingering supportive layers, but all showed signs of faceting. I had no propagation in stability tests, but don't like the structure for long-term stability. Large grained depth hoar makes up the lowest 50cm of the snowpack, with other weak faceted layers in the mid and upper layers. The initial failure once a new slab is built will be on the surface facets, but given the slope and depth of other weak layers, could punch out layers deeper in the snowpack.
Avalanche
Triggered a pair of small facet sluffs in very steep terrain that was sheltered from wind effects by surrounding trees.