Aspen
AvalancheMatt Huber · Jan 18, 2020 · Aspen
Weather
High thin clouds and light snowfall obscured visibility for most of the trip. Occassional northwest wind gusts would visibly blow snow on above treeline ridgelines with no significant new loading.
Snowpack
While looking for a profile site near 12,000 feet on a northwest-facing, I initiated a large collapse from a thin, weak portion of a meter deep, pencil hard wind slab. The slab was likely from the long duration wind-event the first week of January, failing on a mid-pack faceted layer. The snowpack at this site is generally 1-1.5 meters deep.The upper snowpack is dominated by a thin layer of facets and decomposing stellars, sandwiched between two pencil hard windslab's. The upper windslab has evidence of a melt-freeze crust in the upper boundary and has 15-20 cm of recent snow on top.Easy propagating extended column tests results at the recent snow/upper slab interface. Moderate propagating Extended column test results on the bottom of the lower slab at a facet interface. The rest of the snowpack is faceted and weak, resting on 34 cm of depth hoar but no other propagating failures.
Avalanche
Several small natural soft slabs on northeast-facing slopes near treeline northwest of Taylor pass, likely failg on the January 9 interface but unable to confirm. Another, larger natural avalnche was seen above Ashcroft near Monument but the visibility window quickly closed before I could get more detailed info.