Gunnison
AvalancheBen Pritchett · May 3, 2023 · Gunnison
Weather
Broken skies under a mixture of high thin and cumulous clouds.
Snowpack
On a north-facing slope at 9,500 feet, at 12:30, the snowpack remained supportive to foot travel. The snowpack was just under three feet deep (80-90cm). The top couple inches of the snow surface was wet and cohesionless, but a stout ice crust in the upper snowpack remained frozen. A second ice crust near the middle of the snowpack also remained frozen. The bottom of the snowpack was moist to wet Depth Hoar grains that were fist-hard.
Avalanche
Only a few Loose Wet avalanches ran along the western slope of the Sawatch Range, all below rocky areas in the shallower snowpack areas near Cottonwood Pass. Further north, towards Independence and Taylor Passes, the snowpack is much more continuous with far fewer rocks melting through the snowpack, and I could see far fewer Loose Wet avalanches. I saw only one small, but full-depth Loose Wet avalanche in Taylor Canyon on a very steep (45+ degree) north-facing cut bank above the road.