Gunnison

Avalanche

Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Nov 21, 2016 · Gunnison

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Weather

Weather: Breezy and relatively warm, warming throughout day. Winds also picked up out of NW later in the day and we witnessed snow transport down valley.

Snowpack

Variable. Some areas blown clean by the wind in the last storm with some areas containing around a meter of snow. Hard wind slabs on top of crust/facet combos on more Easterly aspects and more faceted snow in the base of the pack on more Northerly aspects. Heard a lot of whumpfs throughout the day.

Avalanche

Touring out Yule Pass I stepped below the trail on a test slope and saw a shooting crack run out from my ski tip. The slide propagated around 25-30 meters, from a due north slope to a more NE facing slope. The slope angle in the starting zone was not that steep, maybe even sub 35 degrees. I apologize for not getting a measurement of this. Crown was around a meter deep, and was not as shear on the more East facing part. Likely encountered a crust lower down the slowed the propagation that was not present on the North facing part. HS-AS-R2-D2-O.