Front Range
AvalancheColeman Kane · Feb 6, 2022 · Front Range
Weather
Snow was intermittent throughout the day, and we estimate that the area saw roughly 5cm of snow. Winds stayed calm. Cloud cover varied from CLR to OVC. Temperatures ranged from the high 20's to low teens depending on cloud cover. Observation was taken on the west ridge of Paradise Basin on and east aspect near tree line.
Snowpack
We found the top 20 or so cm of the snowpack to be the most variable and problematic. Paradise Basin received roughly 10cm of very light and cohesionless snow the night of 2/5. The storm snow produced small (R1D1) avalanches on steep (>38deg) test slopes. This storm snow sat atop a small but stiff wind slab (likely from 2/2 storm) on E aspects, and some N aspects. We were able to find this slab at all elevation bands. The thickness of this slab varied with tree cover across the terrain. In some areas the slab supported the weight of a skier, in other spots it was easy to break through. This layer was our greatest concern. In many places, this slab was producing shooting cracks and whumphs. Our pit did not produce any propagating instability tests, but we suspect the wind slab was thinner in that location. The rest of the snowpack is very stable. While we only dug down roughly a meter, it was difficult to push a probe into the pencil hard slab 140cm and below.
Avalanche
We were able to kick off small loose dry avalanches on steep, northerly slopes near and below tree line. We suspect this would have been consisted above tree line as well, but we did not find any test slopes. Some test slopes also produced small soft slab avalanches, likely caused by the thin wind slab.