Avalanche

Evans Basin

Evan RossGunnison
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Observation photo 1Observation photo 2Observation photo 3

Quick report

Cracking
isolated
Collapsing
isolated

I guess it felt L2, but I sure wouldn't call it a danger level for what little terrain I traveled through. There wasn't much for bigger terrain that I felt safe getting close too. 

Snow snowpack mostly felt quiet. I felt a couple of collapses that shook small trees and very isolated cracking.

Weather

Cloud Cover
overcast

Calm wind. Overcast sky and a light snow shower starting up in the afternoon.

Snowpack

Short tour in Evans Basin. Traveled in low-angled terrain and on smaller test slopes. The snowpack felt surprisingly quiet on those test slopes, and finding any obvious signs of instability was difficult. I dug one test profile on an east aspect at 11,100ft. The HS here was 135cm, and the December facets were 1.5mm in size, with their corners having begun to round off. This interface still produced an ECTP 13. 

The snowpack may have felt quieter because I traveled in areas where the snowpack was relatively deep, compared to the sustained steep slopes that have a notably shallower snowpack due to the Thanksgiving cycle. 

 

Avalanche

Size
D1
Aspect
SE
Elevation
9500 ft

There is a mess of small avalanches in the Kebler Corridor near the Gravel Pit. The ones above the road look like they were already recorded on Jan 3rd. There were a couple of new slabs below the road that looked like they had run in the last 24 hours. My best guess is those were triggered by a snowcat.