Front Range
AvalancheIan Fowler · Mar 31, 2022 · Front Range
Weather
Sunny warm day hovering around freezing. There were some high clouds that kept temperatures down. A light wind was blowing from the west with occasional snow transport.
Snowpack
The sun was warming the surface of the snow at all elevations and it was pretty soft by the end of the day BTL. On an easterly aspect above treeline I found a very deep snowpack, but then only 20 meters away was bare rock, typical for Rocky Mountain National Park. In the upper meter of the snowpack there was a thick pencil hard crust layer and then two obvious ice layers in the snow. Below both ice layers there were facets that were rounding. Beneath the upper ice layer I was able to get hard propagating failures on extended column tests.
Avalanche
2 small loose wet avalanches on the steep south facing couloirs on Otis Peak.