Avalanche

Cement and Upper Brush Creek

Zach GuyGunnison
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Quick report

The snowpack is shallow and weak below treeline, and shallow and wind hammered above treeline.  Many alpine slopes are eroded down to dirt or hard sastrugi features, some of the more concave terrain has hard, old slabs from previous wind events.  Near treeline is a mix of the two.  The recent wind event didn't have much snow available for transport, so wind slabs appeared to be isolated and small.  Facet sluffs would be easy to trigger below treeline in steep, shady terrain. 

Minor cracking in a few shallow wind drifts.

Weather

Air Temp
Cold
Wind Loading
light
Recent Snowfall
0
Snow Avail For Transport
small smounts

Clouds increased through the day. Winds were light N/BTL, but steady moderate to strong speeds on Carbonate Hill, where there was ongoing snow transport. Most of it looked to be blowing into the atmosphere. Snowfall started around 4 p.m.

Snowpack

Below treeline:  Still enough midpack left above 10k to prevent full-depth snowmobile pen and full depth sluff gouging. The top 30 cm is fist hard facets on W, N, E aspects.  SE aspects BTL are a mix of dirt, faceted crusts, or just facets on colder features that catch more terrain shading.  Most south aspects are dirt.  Below ~10k, the snowpack is all fist hard and snowmobile pen is to the ground.  

Above treeline:  Snow surfaces are hard (1F, P, K) windpacked rounds, presumably with some faceting at the surface. Convex and wind-exposed terrain features are often eroded down to or near the ground.  

Avalanche

Decent visibility this morning; no recent avalanches observed.