Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek · Mar 5, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
25F, Scattered sky and Calm winds at 10:00 AM at the trailhead. Intermittent snow throughout the day with peak precipitation around 2 cm per hour (S2) for about 30 min. shortly after noon. Light winds gusting Moderate from the west and southwest throughout the day with Moderate snow transport and blowing snow at ridgelines. At 4:30 PM back at the trailhead the temperature was 40F with Broken skies and no precipitation.
Snowpack
Widespread collapsing and shooting cracks below treeline and near treeline on northwest, north, and northeast-facing slopes. Collapses were propagating over 100 feet and shooting cracks could be observed across entire slopes. The layer of failure for every collapse was the buried near-surface facets (FCsf) under a 40-60cm thick slab of rounded grains (RG) and precipitation particles (PP). West-facing slopes at this elevation were getting localized collapses failing in a layer of facets below a buried melt-freeze crust (MFcr). East-facing slopes were not collapsing as much as northerly's but snowpack tests showing unstable results on a layer of FCsf buried 50-70cm under the snow surface. Above the treeline only a couple of collapses were observed when wind-sheltered slopes were found. Otherwise a thick 50-80cm slab is insulating the still very weak (F hard on the hand hardness scale) buried FCsf and snowpack tests show largely unstable results on this layer.
Avalanche
Numerous old avalanches were observed and coded separately.