Avalanche

Eastern side of Elk Mountains

CAICGunnison
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Quick report

Hard to ignore the fresh deep drifts on cross-loaded northwest and west-facing terrain. I chose to avoid travel directly beneath several westerly-facing slopes that looked plump in the gullies and shallow in between the gullies. Small Wind Slab avalanches ran early afternoon on northeast, east, and southeast-facing terrain. Really no shed cycle yet. Over a foot of dry snow above the old crusts ready to shed when temps climb (likely on Thursday).

Weather

Partly to mostly cloudy. Winter up high. Spring down low. Wind speeds increased in the afternoon, with steady light transport.

Snowpack

Snowpack depth is generally in the 220 to 250cm range, but much shallower on many slopes where mid-winter wind-scouring removed volume. Around 15" of recent storm snow. Hard to find areas of soft snow below the storm snow. Only northerly terrain above around 11,500 did not get crusted last week. Recent buried crusts on sunny slopes are 1-2" thick.

Avalanche

Saw 4x small Wind Slab avalanches that ran between Noon and 2 PM.