Front Range
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Nov 26, 2025 · Front Range
Weather
Moderate northwest winds were not drifting any significant amounts of snow. Skies were overcast, and it felt cold.
Snowpack
I mostly traveled on north and northeast-facing slopes. These slopes have 25 to 30 cm of snow where there hasn't been recent drifting. Small drifted areas have a snow depth of up to 60 cm. Looking at east-facing slopes like Kitchen Wall, above US-6, and Idiot's Cornice, there is very little snow. Small cornices built from recent winds, but there is more rock than snow after about 50 vertical feet down from the ridge. Southerly-facing slopes are still bare along CO-91 and have a thin layer of recent snow in the southern Gore Range, as well as where I traveled near Loveland Pass. Looking across I-70 to the Dry Gulch area, most east through south-facing slopes are bare. I dug on in a small area of drifted snow on a north-facing slope and found a snow depth of 55 cm. The bottom 20 cm is mostly soft, faceted snow. The slab is 4-finger hard and cohesive, but surprisingly I did not get propagating results in an ECT. The slab is just a few feet wide and can be found near the edge of a cross-loaded gully. A few feet over, in the gully, I was walking on ground in 20 to 25 cm of soft snow. I observed some shooting cracks, but this was mostly in the recently drifted snow and just a few inches deep. I did not experience any significant, deep cracking or hear any whumpfing while walking on northerly, recently drifted terrain features.