Gunnison

Remotely triggered a very large avalanche from a stomp near the summit ridgeline. The slide began as a D2 on an east-facing feature, hit the apron, and then connected into northeast and north-facing features, about 1800' wide. Where we triggered the slide from, the crown was about 2 feet deep, but it entrained the entire weak snowpack to the ground, which was 4 feet deep.

cloud cover: few; wind loading: none; snow avail for transport: moderate amounts

Snow surfaces got wet on southerlies and there were a few minor wet loose avalanches from rocky slopes.  . Most of the tour, we traveled on an existing skin track without signs of instability. Once we got off the skin track, we produced occasional small to medium-sized collapses, almost all of which required a stomp or ski stab. A handful of these collapses were on flat slopes above a steep SE-facing start zone, and didn't produce any avalanches. As the start zone changed to east-facing, we had the same lack of activity for the first few collapses. I have about 5 minutes of footage of Eric walking and stomping along the ridge, getting excited about a collapse, but nothing happens. The final collapse on a less-gladed slope produced the big slide.