Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Dec 18, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
A fine day with some clouds.
Snowpack
The last several days of warm temperatures and cold nights created different surface conditions on southerly-facing slopes. Most of the slopes I traveled on today had a mixture of soft and breakable crust. In a snowpit around 11,600ft on a southeast-facing slope, I found a snow height of 64 cm, mostly soft-ish snow ( Fist to 4 Finger Hard snow), and only a 10cm layer of 1 Finger Hard snow towards the bottom. The surface snow was faceting and breaking down a melt-freeze crust just below the surface. Two Extended Column Tests did not produce propagation across the column (ECTN18@11cm and ECTN24@11cm) but broke on the layer of facets near the ground. I found crusts about three to five cm thick on more exposed south-facing slopes at all elevations. In an open bowl, I found three different crusts in a shallower part of the snowpack (35cm deep). Sandwiched between the crusts were facets, which is to be expected. We will continue to monitor these layers, which may become problematic in the future.