Gunnison

Avalanche

Evan Ross Zach Guy · Apr 9, 2024 · Gunnison

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Weather

Beatufly day. Calm to light winds.

Snowpack

Above 10,000ft on southerly facing slopes, the snow that fell last weekend hadn't transitioned. In the morning, there were soft crusts over 1 to 4" of cold snow. Easterly facing slopes between about 12,600ft and 10,000ft had a similar 2 to 5" of snow that was still making the spring transition above a hard crust below. Small wet loose avalanche conditions started to develop below about 11,800ft around 11 a.m. The top few inches of snow got moist but not wet and it will take more time for the spring transition to fully conclude and turn to spring corn with the current high temperatures. At 10,000ft on an NE aspect of Snodgrass, there was around 2" of moist snow available for very small wet loose avalanches in the afternoon. Previous wind slabs appeared to be well bonded to the crust and produced no signs of instability. There was a small-grained surface hoar event last night to above treeline elevations.

Avalanche

A handful of small loose wet avalanches originating from rocky terrain on the East Face of Gothic. Some of these ran naturally between yesterday and today. We skier-triggered several that entrained only the top few inches of snow while running on old crusts below that were well-frozen.