Grand Mesa

Snowpack

Matt Huber · Feb 18, 2019 · Grand Mesa

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Weather

Light snow fell for most of the trip with temps near 20 F. Visibility was poor with periods of fog, when ridgelines were visible no blowing snow was seen.

Snowpack

The total snowpack depth was 225 cm on a north facing slope at 10,400 feet. The early February storm is easily identified at about 155 cm from the ground by the 2-3 cm of graupel at the bottom of the layer. The graupel layer was the only layer in the snowpack that produced failures with instability tests. ECTN29/ECTP30. I did not see cracking, collapsing or feel any whumpfing in my travels.