Gunnison

Quick report

Zach Guy and Brie Yost · Mar 18, 2026 · Gunnison

Weather

Light breeze. So hot that we went for a swim in West Brush Creek. air temp (F): Highs in the low 40s at 12,000', upper 40s at 11,000', and mid 50s at 10,000'.; cloud cover: clear; wind loading: none; recent snowfall (cm): 0; snow avail for transport: none

Snowpack

There is a thick (1 cm+) ice crust a few inches below the snow surface, which kept the snowpack supportive into the afternoon and appeared to be sealing off meltwater percolation where we dug. My guess is this is the 2/25 freezing rain crust (what was a relatively thin ice lens), which has thickened through iterations of freewater pooling and refreezing above it. The small amount of snow above the crust was very wet or slushy today, making for nice supportive riding conditions, but I didn't find freewater draining beyond it deeper into the snowpack. We passed a rock band that was causing an alarming amount of water to flow somewhere into the snowpack, or maybe just the ground. At low elevations, the crust is also present, but the lower snowpack is moist to wet: ski pen remained supportive while boot pen and snowmobile pen would often punch through into a cohesionless mess below. Snow surfaces remained dry above treeline on northerlies and looked uninvitingly firm, a mix of wind board and the old rain crust. . A couple of wet slab collapses in low-angle terrain around 10,000' this afternoon.