Front Range
SnowpackIan Fowler · Apr 3, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
The day started cool, windy, and cloudy, which helped slow the warming at the surface. By noon, the clouds had cleared, and it was warming quickly.
Snowpack
Below treeline on a southerly and easterly aspect, the snowpack had drained water most of the way to the ground, and almost the whole snowpack was large melt-freeze grains. When I was leaving the field around 2 p.m, the snow below treeline was punchy, and I was sinking in boot top to knee deep in some areas. Not fun skiing! I observed from southeast to east to the north in the bowl below the Radio Beacon peak. There was a weak layer down about 20cm in all these areas, but the weak layer was decomposing snow grains in all snow profiles except the northeast one. On the northeast profile, the weak layer was rounding facets, which shouldn't last for long. From northeast through north, the snow was still very cold and dry. On other aspects around 11,000ft just the top 5 to 10cm was being affected by water. Snow depths near and above treeline where always well over 2 meters.