Gunnison

Quick report

Zach Guy · Jan 3, 2026 · Gunnison

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Weather

Beautiful morning with clear skies above a valley stratus cloud that was parked below ~10,500'. That stratus cloud burned off by late morning and some high clouds moved in midday. cloud cover: few; wind loading: previous; recent snowfall (cm): 30; snow avail for transport: small smounts

Snowpack

Last night's stratus cloud formed a bathtub ring of surface hoar, with the largest grains (up to 10 mm) between roughly 11,000 to 11,500', and small grains (1-2mm) down to about 10,400 or so. . We experienced a handful of large collapses on relatively wind-sheltered, near treeline slopes (S to SW aspects, ~20* slope angles). The culprit was a collapsing crust/facet/crust sandwich below the most recent storm, 12" to 18" deep (Relatively thin Jan 1 sun crust collapsing into facets above the Christmas crust). As we gained elevation into steeper and more wind-affected terrain ATL, that structure was absent, though we mostly kept to wind-eroded terrain up high.

Avalanche

A dozen or so natural large (D2) persistent slabs ran yesterday near and above treeline in the Northwest Mountains, concentrated on N to E aspects. One exception is on Augusta, which looked like it broke from E to SE facing terrain. Also a handful of smaller storm slabs, some of which caused step-downs.