Gunnison
AvalancheCBAC Staff · Nov 13, 2024 · Gunnison
Weather
Beautiful day. Calm to light wind, clear sky, warm temps. There were a few snow plumes off the high peaks, otherwise, there wasn't any notable wind-loading continuing to occur today.
Snowpack
At 11,000ft, the 24-hour storm totals were 25cm or about 10 inches. Below 11,500ft this new snow was light and low density. Above 11,700ft the new snow was a little thicker due to the previous winds. Today's sun was also beginning to moisten the snow surface on lower elevation easterly facing slopes. There wasn't efficient wind-loading into the majority of the main east bowl of Purple Ridge. Given the changing wind direction during the storm, some snow had been loaded across the ridge and into the bowl, but the wind had also pulled snow across the bowl and made the whole loading pattern less effective. I was able to produce a couple of shooting cracks right on a wind whale, but otherwise, the wind slabs were not well developed in this terrain and/or had also become more stubborn to triggering. No other avalanche concerns were encountered.
Avalanche
Looking down the Ruby Range, there were many small avalanche debris piles below steep terrain. I couldn't see any notable crowns as they had either already been blown over, or the avalanche debris were from sluffs. We got up close to one wind slab avalanche on Purple Ridge that had produced a decent-sized debris pile, and the crown on that avalanche had also already been blown back over. All natural avalanche activity looked to have occurred on Tuesday (11/12) during the first 3/4th of the storm.