Gunnison

Snowpack

Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Jan 17, 2014 · Gunnison

View on map

Weather

Temps in upper 20's, strong down valley Northerly winds, with gusts into the 30's transporting snow at the surface. Strong solar radiation.

Snowpack

Wind and Sun are the major offenders to last weekends fluffy pow. Very minimal sun crusts were on found on steeper (>30*) direct south facing aspects on ascent. On descent numerous pockets of pencil hard to knife hard wind crust was found on most all open slopes exposed to Northerly winds on E-NE aspects below treeline. Otherwise wind textured Fist to 4F hard surface snow found. Mid-pack supportive to ski pen only, with some pockets being completely unsupportive where a well-developed mid-pack is lacking (ie: old slide paths). No signs of collapsing or cracking observed. Overall weak and mostly unsupportive snowpack structure now capped by very hard wind slabs and wind crusts.