Gunnison

Snowpack

Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Jan 30, 2014 · Gunnison

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Weather

Obscured sky all day, Moderate to heavy snow fall with times of very heavy. Calm to light winds. Early morning snow was very warm and rimed, around 11:30 am temps dropped slightly, snow intensity increased, and crystals became less rimed more stellar forms. Later in the day these lighter crystals would run on top of the graupel layer while breaking trail. Storm slab was between 30-35cm deep on protected N-NE slopes around 10,500ft by 2:30 pm.

Snowpack

Noticed that bottom of storm slab was slightly more dense than the surface facets it rested on, on E-NE aspects (4F on top of F) did not experience and whumphs as we expected from this Ob, (bet this will change with tonight's loading) but did have small cracks come from ski tips while breaking, none with much energy or propagation. Steeper slopes around 40 degrees did sluff out on this layer. Storm slab rested quite well on crusty south facing slopes when looked at in hand pits, and skied on lower angle terrain.