Front Range
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Jan 17, 2022 · Front Range
Weather
Today felt very much like a spring day. Temperature was well above freezing at the trailhead around 10am and only got warmer throughout the day. High alititude clouds begain working their way into the area. Very light wind if any even once I started to get near treeline.
Snowpack
I traveled mostly on east and south slopes today below and near treeline. I was able to find a small area where I could make some observations on northeast. The main takeaways from today were warm temperatures which affected mostly east through south-facing slopes. The surface started to become moist. The snowpack is slowly beginning to gain strength but is not there yet. I did not see any signs of instabilities like cracking or collapsing today. Still, snowpit observations revealed medium propagation tests results on the old, weak snow at the bottom of the snowpack. I probed around to get a sense of snow height’s spatial variability, ranging from 90cm to almost 2meter. Still, I felt my probe give way before it reached the ground suggesting a weak basal layer.
Avalanche
The Mount Trelease avalanche from January 2, 2022 was still visible. The crown was slowly getting filled in again.