Grand Mesa
SnowpackDylan Craaybeek · Dec 16, 2022 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Cold, mostly clear (Few), and mostly Calm with occasional Light westerly winds at ridgetop. -6F in Redstone at 8:30, 13F at the trailhead at 10:00, 8F at the trailhead at 16:00. Could see the Flat Tops were fully obscured for most of the day with several clouds over the Elks and West Elks as well.
Snowpack
The height of snow (HS) on northerly slopes between about 8500-10,000ft. ranges between 80-110cm with the slab making up around 40-80cm. A persistent weak layer (PWL) of faceted crystals (FC) lies below the slab to the ground and is F to 4F hard on the hand hardness scale. There is a consistent 1F to P hard base of the slab about 10-20cm thick with 4F to F hard snow above it. Widespread collapsing and cracking still experienced on almost all northerly slopes but becoming more stubborn requiring a stomp in most areas to trigger the collapse. There was a prominent graupel layer near the ridgeline that showed some localized failures in snowpack tests but no propagation. On wind-loaded terrain features where the slab is over 1m thick with a P hard slab at the bottom above the PWL there were no slope-scale collapses or cracks and snowpack tests would show propagating failures between 20-30 taps during extended column tests (ECTs). On wind-sheltered terrain features most ECTs had propagating failures on isolation or within 10 taps. Southeast-facing slopes have a facet crust combination and several collapses were experienced on this aspect, though not as frequent or as widespread as northerly slopes. HS on sunny slopes ranged from around 30-50cm with a ski penetration (SP) of about 10cm.