Front Range

Snowpack

Wesley O'Rourke · Apr 17, 2011 · Front Range

Weather

Modeadte winds 15-25mph and cloud cover in the morning. turned bad really quick around 1 thirty with heavy ridge winds around 40mph and little to no visibilty. Snow was falling heavy at the end of the day aroun and inch an hour.

Snowpack

We approached the far lookers left of three sisters couloirs. We got to the mouth of the couloir where we anticipated digging a snow pit. The pit showed a fresh 12 inches of moderately wet powder on top of well consolidated frozen snow. In the layer below this new snow the pack wasnâ€™t too wet and no layers were present. It seems good spring snow conditions are near with a few more freeze thaw cycles. Higher in the couloir wind slabs were getting pretty scary forming on either sides of the cliff walls. A two inch slab was consistently slabing of every time we struck the snow above us. Other than the instability of that top two inches the snow was stable. We rode all three sister one a piece. The sluff slides were quite large and we slide most of the new snow out of the couloir. . I would be aware of this new snow accumulating atop the highly unstable wind slabs from the storm on 4/13 and 4/14 these could be easily triggered wind slabs over two feet deep. The possibility for a deep slab fracture looks to be improving.