Aspen
AvalancheBrandon Levy, Jewel Campbell · Mar 27, 2024 · Aspen
Weather
The ambient temperature stayed fairly cool and the cloud cover remained broken thorughout the day. There was light north to northwest wind with occasional moderate gusts. No visible snow transport.
Snowpack
The snow depth on the west-facing slopes adjacent to Waterhole #1 was around 150cms. The aforementioned curst/facet/crust combination seemed to be the most concerning layer where we looked near-treeline. The persistent weak layer which was buried at the begining of February was down about 90cms and consisted of rounding faceted grains. I was not able to get that layer to propagate or to produce failure in smaller column test. The grains on the middle and lower snowpack looked and felt dry to moist.
Avalanche
We saw a few loose dry avalanches on east-facing slopes above the Roaring Fork River in the Upper Lost Man area. One small slab avalanche on a drifted north-facing slope on Independence Mountain involved only the new snow received since 3/24.