Gunnison

Avalanche

Ben Pritchett and Eric Murrow · Feb 20, 2020 · Gunnison

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Weather

Early spring'ish weather. Very warm, barely a breeze.

Snowpack

Generally quiet snowpack, except for one football-field sized collapse that shook snow out of a cornice ~100 yards away. 2 out of 3 on propagating ECT's, 20/100 on PST's. Feb 3 crust/facet layer definitely still a concern on east to southeast for initiating an avalanche in the upper snowpack, but it's the basal weak layers that are the bigger concern. Test results and structure were worse below treeline than near treeline. Near treeline the slabs were more dense, and the snowpack somewhat stiffer overall. As we moved into less wind-effected terrain close to 11,000', the basal facets were sharper, not at all sintered (pouring out of pit), and we triggered the collapse mentioned above, which propagated back through terrain we'd skinned up skied down with a little while before.

Avalanche

Once recent cornice fall avalanche that triggered a very large avalanche which broke near the ground exposing a large alpine rock slab. Numerous unreported avalanches from the last week. Avalanches from the 2/7 cycle were barely visible now. Several small Loose Wet avalanches.