Gunnison

Avalanche

Zach Guy · Feb 25, 2025 · Gunnison

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Weather

Moderate to strong SW winds were finding a little bit of snow to blow off of Scarp. Mild temps. cloud cover: scattered; wind loading: light; recent snowfall (cm): 0; snow avail for transport: small smounts

Snowpack

Crown investigation:  Meltwater from the weekend had percolated through the slab and Feb 8th crust, and had pooled on a grain size boundary between 2mm facets and 2.5-4mm depth hoar.  There were several ice lenses within the slab and weak layer now caused by subsequent refreezing.  See crown profile and photos for details.  Snow surfaces remained frozen above treeline due to strong winds and some cloud cover, but softened and became wet at lower elevations protected from the wind.  One pit on an ENE aspect (dry snowpack) produced ECTX results but propagated across the column after I gave it a hard stomp with my boot, failing on the Feb 8th facet layer.   . No signs of instability observed under sled.

Avalanche

More fresh wet loose activity from yesterday along with four fresh slab avalanches (3xD1, 1xD2) that ran during the warmup, either from water reaching the weak layer or triggered by wet loose.