Front Range
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Mar 29, 2021 · Front Range
Weather
Winds were fairly light below treeline, though you could hear some freight-train gusts from up high. We got near treeline and winds were bearable with calm periods followed by 30 to 40 mph gusts. Snow was still moving above treeline but not as extensive as yesterday. Effective wind-loading was isolated to a few peaks within view and not widespread. Very warm even in the wind. Clouds moved in around 3 PM. Mostly clear before that.
Snowpack
The below treeline snowpack is well on its way to a springtime snowpack. At the upper-end of this elevation band we found a solid snowpack with one-finger, moist basal layers and harder layers above (see snowpit for details). This was east-southeast facing. On east-facing near-treeline slopes, we found a 2 meter deep snowpack with mid-pack layers that were hard to probe through. On a northeast-facing near-treeline slope there was 30 cm of recent snow, progressively harder from the surface, sitting on a layer of rounded grains. No buried facet layer was identified and compression tests were unexciting. No obvious signs of instability were observed. The snowpack height was 212 cm here.---Winds were forming a hard, two-inch thick wind crust over softer layers. No cracking was observed in wind-drifted snow. Although it was very warm and the top few inches of snow was moist to wet, no significant, recent wet avalanche activity observed.
Avalanche
Avalanches viewed may have been from yesterday's winds. Most of the avalanches looked to be triggered by cornice fall, breaking as thin slabs, and running down the path, entraining snow, as loose dry avalanches