Front Range
SnowpackPedro Rodriguez · Jan 16, 2017 · Front Range
Weather
Weather in the morning through about 2:30PM was about -4C and sunny at about 11,000ft. As 2:30PM came around fog came into the valley which limited visibility and seemed to be depositing moisture on the snowpack. Winds were calm through the day.
Snowpack
Snowpit was taken at 11,000 on a nearly dead east aspect near tree-line (GPS location in pit). The snowpack itself was 1.8M deep with fairly consistent increasing hardness down to pencil at 1 meter. We did not find any layers of concern due to no slab over weak layer and negative test results (CTHQ3 with a vertically broken block @ 50, ECTX) Our most important observation was widespread surface hoar from valley bottom to the summit with sizes in the 3-6mm range. These sat on top of what looked like very small facets forming a 20CM layer. The measured temperature gradient through this layer was strong and in two directions which seems to imply that solar radiation heated the snowpack at approximately 10CM causing a gradient from 0-10CM and 10-20CM. Finally, we found small pockets of both crusts from micro features facing east/south. Similarly, some micro features had a small wind slab developing.