Front Range
AvalancheEthan Davis · Jan 6, 2015 · Front Range
Weather
Broken skies, warm (near freezing). Some wind below treeline although most trees still had snow. Near treeline there were some terrain altered winds wrapping around from the north. Mostly light with moderate bursts. Above treeline snow was pluming from moderate to strong west winds.
Snowpack
Below treeline, heavy powder. Near treeline a mix of pencil to knife hard wind slab in areas but never more than 6 inches thick. Mostly wind scalloped heavy powder. No significant rain crust found, although a very thin crust was evident in pockets isolated from the wind. In pit location we had a pencil hard slab over weak facets and depth hoar. As I stomped a place for my pack, the knoll we were on collapsed. Even after the collapse we were able to get "easy" results in all tests. (see pit profile)
Avalanche
No new avalanche observations.