Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek · Mar 17, 2024 · Aspen
Weather
Very warm with extended periods of sunshine and few to scattered cloud coverage. S-1 in the afternoon around 15:00 as we began descending with light southerly wind.
Snowpack
The main persistent weak layer of concern, the February 2 surface hoar layer, is unreactive in snowpack tests below treeline and buried over a meter deep on most slopes near and above treeline. All southerly slopes have two thick, K hard (on the hand hardness scale) melt-freeze crusts (MFcr) in the top 15cm of the snowpack that keep ski penetration at 0cm when frozen all morning. Even on a warm, sunny day when this upper crust freezes, we will likely need two days with warm overnight temperatures before water gets through the second MFcr. Wind-loaded slopes above the treeline were over 250cm deep with less than 15cm ski penetration.
Avalanche
Investigated a very large (D3) avalanche just north of Garrett Peak that put debris into East Snowmass Creek. Observed several small slab avalanches that appeared to be Wet Slabs on sunny slopes below vegetation and cliff bands.