Aspen
SnowpackDylan Craaybeek, Jewel Campbell · Jan 4, 2024 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Mostly cloudy with intermittent snow picking up in intensity to around S2 at 2:00 PM. Light westerly winds.
Snowpack
The average height of snow (HS) for this area ranged from around 50-70cm above about 9,000 feet. Southerly slopes are mostly melted to the ground with discontinuous melt-freeze crusts (MFcr) while most flat meadows and northerly-facing slopes are composed of around 20cm of very weak, F hard, near-surface facets on top of a supportable mid-pack slab composed of mixed forms but primarily of facets. There is a layer of well-developed depth hoar with spatially variable crusts below the slab but even with a slab and a weak layer present snowpack tests show largely stable results with extended column tests getting no failures and column tests getting sudden collapses after more than 20 taps on the basal weak layer.