Avalanche

Upper West Brush Creek, Coffee Pot Pass, Conundrum Basin

Turner PetersenGunnison
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Quick report

Cracking
isolated
Collapsing
isolated

Snow conditions were about as variable as it gets consisting with a mix of wind board, breaker crust,  sastrugi,  and pure facets. It was hard to get a gauge on actual snow coverage and depth because the wind had done such a number on most aspects and elevations but I’d say 50-60 cm’s of coverage in most of upper west brush creek. There were numerous old crowns primarily on high east faces on the Ridgeline and unnamed peaks linking between Whiterock and triangle pass. It would be hard to determine if these were from the November event or the past 10 days of hard slab activity but I’d have to assume many were from the November cycle just because of the lack of new snow out here.

We got one odd collapse on our exit on a low west facing gully of teo. Dinner plate cracking on most wind loaded features but not enough to cause any problems.

Weather

Air Temp
26
Cloud Cover
few
Recent Snowfall
0
Snow Avail For Transport
none

Snowpack

Hardly any structure of any kind other than wind crust over very mature facets. Mixed bag of wind board, sastrugi, breaker, pure facets, and ground.

Avalanche

Numerous old hard slabs on N, NE, E faces of the Ridgeline dividing upper west brush creek and copper creek.