Front Range

Avalanche

John Mackinnon ยท Jan 15, 2017

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Weather

Overcast skies trending to obscured in the late afternoon. Very light snow, calm winds and an airtemp of -3 C at 2 pm at 11, 700 ft.

Snowpack

Our class dug a series of test profiles on a SE aspect near TL in the Loveland Pass area. Our site location was in a previously wind loaded area. We found an average HS of 190 cm with about 1 meter of January storm snow resting on the December storm snow. The January storm series is well rounded and gets progressively firmer (4F+ to P+). The December storm snow that we investigated consisted of 1.0 mm rounding facets (1F). Compression tests produced repeatable resistant test results on mid-storm instabilities in the upper 30 cm of the snowpack. A deep tap test that targeted the 1/3 interface showed no result--DTN down 100 cm 1.0 mm rounding facets. We also observed large (4-6 mm) surface hoar glistening on the surface today on E and SE aspects near and below TL.

Avalanche

We did not observe any avalanche activity on our tour.