Gunnison
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Mar 26, 2016 · Gunnison
Weather
Overcast and snowing S-1 for most of the day with a few pulses of S2. No wind except for a moderate northeast wind on exposed peaks.
Snowpack
Snowpack on northerly aspects is mostly faceted except for snow that has fallen in March. The snowpack below about 10500 ft is completely unsupportable. Above 10500 ft the snowpack is supportable to skis but foot pen in into early winter snow. Even with the overall poor snowpack structure the most worrisome layer is the one that is buried about 45 cms down. This layer is widespread throughout the Gunnison zone and formed during the February drought and was buried around March 6th. Every test I performed showed propagation. Overshadowing the exciting snowpack tests was the cracking and collapsing that I experienced. A lot of collapsing in the specific area I was standing but also a couple rumbling collapses. The collapsing was only on north aspects. Easterly aspects that are near treeline show a similar structure and there is not a hard melt-freeze crust that would prevent collapsing of the weak layer until you descend to below 11500 ft.---No instabilities observed within the storm snow and no wind slab development.
Avalanche
None observed.