Gunnison
Quick reportBen Pritchett, Eric Murrow, and Brie Larson · Jan 22, 2026 · Gunnison
Weather
Warm, light westerly breeze with high clouds building by midday.
Snowpack
In open terrain below Ruby Mountain, we found large-grained, cohesionless facets on snow-covered slopes facing north through east to south. Looking into the west-facing Super Couloir, the sunny side of the chute was glaze ice, hard, and still had a thin faceted surface on top. We did not expect to find such well-developed facets above the exceptionally hard wind-packed and suncrusted spots. In Elk Creek we expected to find a cohesionless snowpack throughout. Instead, we found a still intact midpack slab above the faceted rain crust. Below the crust the facets are exceptionally weak. Storm Slab avalanches will run easily on the faceted snow surfaces, but as this weekend's storm loads over the rain crust accumulate, deeper and wider Persistent Slab avalanches may come back into play.
Avalanche
Found one previously unreported large avalanche in the central Anthracites, in the bowl north of Ohio Peak. This was not present a week ago. It ran sometime during last weekend's wind event.