Gunnison

Avalanche

(Public) Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Dec 29, 2020 · Gunnison

View on map

Weather

Weather: Occasional light breeze mostly near and above treeline, intermittent cloud cover, ~10-20F, light snow.

Snowpack

Snowpack: Snow depths varied between 1-2ft. In some places recent storm snow sat on bare ground; in other places that recent storm snow sat on a melt-freeze crust that was on top of faceting older snow.

Avalanche

Avalanches: Lots of collapsing, and long shooting cracks. We climbed and “skied” terrain less than about 31 degrees. Nearing the 30 degree angle (+/- a degree or two) nearly everything collapsed and fractured. We sent continuous cracks nearly 200 ft across one slope, a distance that surprised us (see picture). There were numerous other slopes where cracks travelled 50+ft. All moving snow seemed to break at the interface between the last few days’ storm slab and the older decomposing snow from previous weeks.