Gunnison
AvalancheCBAC Staff · Dec 5, 2022 · Gunnison
Weather
Overcast, light snow and graupel, moderate ridgeline winds with periods of light transport. Mild temps.
Snowpack
Frequent collapsing and shooting cracks while breaking trail on west-facing terrain in the 20* to 30* range. The collapses are occurring on thin and weak facet crust sandwiches. Collapses were somewhat less common on east-facing terrain, perhaps because the slabs are thicker, but plenty of collapses nonetheless. There was an impressive amount of graupel in the top 10 cm of the snowpack. The slab continues to get stiffer and more supportive to skis, making for fun and fast skiing on low angle terrain. After clearly identifying that the terrain we were scouting had slid earlier in the week, we felt comfortable riding on those steeper pitches.
Avalanche
On west facing terrain at Irwin: We remotely triggered a small persistent slab from about 20 feet away (See video). The soft slab was up to 16? thick, and failed on the topmost facet layer in stack of several facet/crust layers that were buried a week ago. The other steep slopes that we traveled near had all avalanched previously. Same for east facing terrain in Elk Creek: all of the paths that we approached slid naturally, probably during the Nov 29 storm.