Gunnison

Avalanche

Crested Butte Avalanche Center · Mar 26, 2018 · Gunnison

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Weather

Thin high clouds, warm, light winds with occasional gusts.

Snowpack

195cm depth, dug to about 125cm depth. Got into a very stiff 1F+ mid pack at about 80cm depth that went to 185cm depth based on probing. Low quality fracture within the storm snow at CTE5 and another just below at CTM 15. Very difficult shearing throughout the column.

Avalanche

Skier triggered slide in a small terrain feature. I skied over a rollover into a small concave chute. Slab broke just above me, about 10" deep and maybe 30-40' wide and pushed me through the choke of the chute. Was able to ski out of the slide. Debris didn't make it even down to a flat spot. It ended up being pretty benign, but it got my blood pumping! 7 other skier runs in the same zone had no evidence of instability.