Grand Mesa
SnowpackMatt Huber Brandon Levy · Dec 11, 2018 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Winds were calm the entire trip with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark during the afternoon.
Snowpack
The snowpack was generally thin, 40 cm on southerly slopes to 80cm on protected north aspects at 10,600'. We observed several significant fractures with palpable whumpfing on an exposed ridgeline with east aspect. The crack propagated roughly 15 m through a shallow windslab. Seperately, an ECT was performed at 10,600' on a protected slope facing north. ECTP 22. The failure occured on a crust that had well developed facets above and below it at about 30 cm from the ground. Above the basal facets and crust is a 50 cm slab of 4F to 1F hardness, increasing in hardness with depth.