Aspen

Avalanche

Polly Layton, Morgan Boyles · Feb 17, 2021 · Aspen

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Weather

Sunny day with a few cloudy changing to high overcast. Temperatures well below freezing all day.

Snowpack

The snowpack below treeline is barely supportable. The second person in the skin track still breaks through to the facets near the ground and you can feel your tails breaking through on descent. Profile results showed ECTP(5) down 47cm on 2mm facets. Below treeline is still very weak in this area. We dug another profile on a southeast aspect at 11,300 ft. After digging to ground, but before isolating the column the second observer stepped out of his skis and initiated a large whumphf. This propagated a fracture at(above) the Feb 3 crust simultaneously with a fracture in the facets 10cm below the crust visible in the pit wall.

Avalanche

We observed two natural avalanches that had likely run in the last 24-48hours. These were not seen on visit up Castle Creek two days prior and didn't look to have any new snow in them. One was on a north aspect at 11,700ft and the other was on a SE aspect at 9400ft.