Gunnison

Skies became partly cloudy midday with moderate winds above 11,000 feet. Intense winds overnight made it difficult to measure the recent snow, but it was likely an inch or less. cloud cover: few; wind loading: light; recent snowfall (cm): 1; snow avail for transport: small smounts

Highly sheltered northerly slope below treeline often had a soft surface, but most open terrain was highly variable from the recent winds.  As we moved near treeline the snow surface was a patchwork of recent wind board, hard old drifts, or small pockets of soft sastrugi. Slopes south of due east have developed melt/freeze crusts at the surface.  Southeast slopes near treeline have strong, supportive-to-boot, crusts and ice columns to the ground (see profile). A single test profile on a drifted, northeast feature at 11,400 feet produced moderate propagating results in basal facets below a hard slab 70cm thick.  The facets appear to be rounding slightly with a hand hardness of fist plus or 4-finger minus.  Persistent Slab structure appeared to be isolated and small in this basin.   . No signs of instability in recently drifted snow and no collapses as we traveled over isolated old drifts.