Aspen

Avalanche

Blase Reardon · Feb 11, 2014 · Aspen

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Weather

THin, high clouds w some breaks in AM. Eventually clearing and mostly blue skies. Light to no winds, though there were plumes of the ridges on Sopris mid-late afternoon.

Snowpack

70-100 cm slab. In crowns, pits and excavated cracks, breaking on coarse-grained (2-3 mm) rounding FC 7-10 cm below Jan 30th interface. Most recent snow F hard w thin spongy temp crust on top. Slab below 4F-->1F at Jan. 30th; 4F+ to collapsing layer. Collapsing layer is F+. Slab 100 cm thick ENE; 70 CM WNW. Inconsistent DT results on this layer. DTM, DTH. SP, brk.

Avalanche

Numerous slides but fell into two categories: A few large to very slides that broke near ridgelines w wide, straight crowns 2-400 m wide, and many large slides below treeline that broke on steep (> 35*) northerly slopes below treeline. Crowns for these were 0.75-1.25 m deep, and often extended through trees to connect open slopes. These produced large amounts of debris that filled many gullies and terrain traps. A few large muddy debris piles on low elevation slopes in the Crystal River. Slides < TL and excavated cracks failed on older snow, below the late January snow surface. Likely the Dec.31st surface.