Front Range
SnowpackBrian Lazar · Feb 23, 2011 · Front Range
Weather
calm, warm, and sunny. Only light to mdoerate wind from the west above treeline.
Snowpack
Snowpack highly variable with aspect and elevation. BTL, not much slab development. Southerly aspects have several sun/mfc within the top 30 cm of the snowpack, and associated NCFs in between. Northerly aspects have newly formed surface hoar persisting on surface. Wind slabs become apparent as soon as you approach TL. Most prominent wind slabs on northwest through north through east aspects, as last significant storm came in on strong southerly winds. Lots of evidence of older S'erthly winds, and more recent NW winds,a adding thin wind crust. The latest NW storms added very little to snowpack or slab development. Winds slabs on N through east aspects, around 2-3 ft thick and P hardness. These same aspects now have a mix of a few inches of new snow, and NSFs, making for 6 inches of good skiing on top of hard windslab. All crusts on west and south sides of compass. Sun and Mfc on S. ATL, wind hammered. Westerlies totally scoured. Crusts on S'erthly. N-E have a thin (10cm)wind crust overlying buried facets, on top of hard (P+) 2-3 ft thick windslab. Skiers really testing steeper alpine slopes. No Name all tracked up from skiers today and yesterday (NE aspects ATL). Examples: Stanley East face had several tracks from today....no signs of instability.