Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta Jackson Emry · Nov 14, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
It was a beautiful day around Cameron Pass, with most light winds gusting a little higher around the ridgeline and not a cloud in the sky.
Snowpack
Off the main trail, around 10700ft, we found about 55cm of snow that was right side up (Fist hard, hard snow over 4-Finger hard). The top part of the snowpack remained the recent snow we received in the last couple of days. I did not notice any faceting at the surface, but it will be something to keep in the back of my mind while we aren’t getting any more snow. Near treeline, we found a slightly deeper snowpack on a northeast-facing slope of 65cm. The upper 41cm of this snowpack was made up of the recent snow from earlier in the week but was starting to facet a bit. This rested on top of a 1 Finger hard slab that was 13cm. We did note a melt-freeze curst 6cm thick on top of some moist basal facets that were relatively 1mm in size. Our snowpit tests did not produce any results (ECTX). Our next pit at 11,400ft was right below the ridge because we wanted to see how loaded slopes reacted. While our snowpit was significantly deeper at 95cm, we did not get any results on snow pit tests (ECTX). However, we found two melt-freeze crusts with 4 Finger hard facets between them about 30 cm up from the ground. I am curious to see how widespread it is around Cameron Pass. This could become a problem once that facet layer becomes even weaker.