Gypsum

<p>One recent slide on the extremely steep/avalanche prone gully on Kent across the way. Nothing new on the Gypsum side of the valley. All of the treed runs were full of tree bombs from either Friday or Friday night. We expected them to make the skiing poor, but they did not. Trail breaking was terrible, because sometimes you would have knee deep dry snow and the next step you might have almost no ski penetration due to the tree bombs. There were some areas with wind slab even in the trees, but the top 30-60cm was mostly unconsolidated. Below that there was an older wind slab, then the rain crust+facet layer above ground. There was a surprising double rain-crust just above ground. The first one was about 10cm above the ground, then there was about 5-10cm of facets and then a second crust. Perhaps this is the way that thick rain crust is breaking down over time? When breaking trail we did find that there was variable support and some of the layers would occasionally collapse under you. However, we didn't have any settlements, whumpfs, shooting cracks etc. There was noticeably more wind at the top of the ridge than at the road, but not enough to create any wind slabs by the time we left at 5 pm.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Dense trees, Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Steep slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder, Heavy, Powder, Wind affected.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy.