Gunnison

Avalanche

Ben Pritchett · Nov 13, 2019 · Gunnison

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Weather

Warm, clear, gentle winds.

Snowpack

Mostly bare ground on sun-exposed slopes. ~30cm of 2-3mm faceted snow in wind and sun protected terrain near treeline. Fist-hard throughout. The mid-October crust was deteriorated completely (visually present, but no stiffness change). We could just barely trigger small facet sluffs in steeper shady terrain. We poked in to a few features with old pencil-hard wind-drifted slabs resting on facets. We could crack the slabs underfoot, but no propagation beyond our skis. On the snow surface, 3-4mm surface hoar was common on many shady slopes, with very large 20-30mm surface hoar in isolated spots near the valley bottom.

Avalanche

Widespread tree / forest damaging avalanche on all aspects in the Upper Taylor and Bowman Creek areas. All large paths produced near maximum sized avalanches.