Aspen
Snowpackdave rasmussen · Jan 13, 2011 · Aspen
Weather
clear, very light wind, 20ish degrees
Snowpack
stiff powder, shallow wind slab of 1-3" on northerly slopes above treeline. we dug a pit at approximately 11,200 on the north aspect of justice a few hundred feet shy of the ridge. pit results were m1 q1 failure on the facets under the last storm snow in an extended column test. the facet layer was clearly visible in the pit and were large. what was interesting was when we dug to the ground, we found an amazingly stable snowpack under the facet layer. 4 fingers to 1 finger to pencil hard at ground level. despite the poor results from the pit, everything we skied felt solid, no one noticed any signs of instability when skiing or breaking track.