Front Range
AvalancheRobert V. Coppolillo · Nov 21, 2015 · Front Range
Weather
Citadel east summit, extremely windy (S wind at ridgeline), gusts to 40 and above, mostly clear sky with couple brief periods of obscured sky. Cold temps but hard to really gauge as wind-chill was brutal, must've been down towards single-digits, with ambient temps in the 20s somewhere. N/NE aspects were sheltered, getting wind loaded, ridgelines, south aspects totally hammered by wind, up to 13,080' at the saddle beside east summit Citadel.
Snowpack
ECTN at 13,060 (12:26 p.m.), NE aspect at top of "Snoopy's", approx 80 feet down into the gully. HS 135cm, 10cm of 2ml depth hoar in bottom of pit, then Veteran's Day layer topped by pencil crust with facets above (F hardness) for 1cm, then 1F, 4F, to F- at snow surface--this was a bit down into the couloir, some minor shooting cracks at ridgeline and wind slab forming. Intense blosno all day, s aspects getting scoured and N/NE aspects getting filled in, but not yet hard wind slab. Definitely forming a harder slab on S aspects, pillows and softer slab on N/NE aspects; N/NE slopes getting "wind buffed" by top-loading winds dropping into valley. Tough day! Wind effect all the way down to treeline in the valley below Citadel/Pettingell. One large (150'x150') whumpf at approx 12,200', n aspect, on approach to Snoopy's (10 a.m.), 26-degree slope, nothing moved. Surprisingly, no other shooting cracks or whumpfs, though we kept the slope angle below 30 degrees.
Avalanche
Nothing recent observed, pretty good vis all day. Old debris 1000 feet down Snoopy's, small chunks, pretty old.