Grand Mesa

Snowpack

Matt Huber · Dec 28, 2019 · Grand Mesa

Weather

A heavy cloud bank lingered between 9000 and 10,000 feet, producing heavy snowfall at times. Above 10,500 feet, clouds were thin and broken with only light snow falling. Temperatures remained near 15 degrees Fahrenheit through the trip with calm winds.

Snowpack

I was able to dig on multiple aspects at about 10,500 feet. On a south facing slope, the total snowpack depth was about 90 centimeters.The Christmas storm settled to about 30 cm, fist to 4F right-side up, and seemed to have bonded well to a moist near surface facet layer near 55 cm from the ground. The basal depth hoar was moist as well. No results with Extended Column Tests. On north aspects, total snowpack depths range between 110-120 cm. About 40 cm of recent storm snow rests on a dry near surface facet layer that produced easy to moderate, propagating Extended Column Test results ECTP 10-12. Several buried, unreactive surface hoar layers are visible from late November/early December. The October depth hoar is slightly moist. No other failures observed with ECT's below the storm snow