Aspen

Snowpack

Dylan Craaybeek Brian Lazar · Nov 30, 2021 · Aspen

Weather

Calm winds with occasional light breeze from the northwest throughout the day. Cool temperatures just below freezing around 8:30AM and warming to above freezing at 12,000 ft. by 11:00AM. Sunny day with some cloud coverage far in the northeast sky.

Snowpack

Shallow (average depth of snow 30-50cm) and faceted snowpack with some spatially variable crusts on most slopes and ski pen close to ground. We targeted a heavily wind-loaded area where we could find the isolated stiff slab over weak layers combination. Snow depth in this location was 1.5 meters deep across the 20-30 meter concave slope just below the ridgeline. This snowpit consisted of mostly 1F to P hard slabs with a layer of facets that propagated during an ECT about 40cm down from the surface. There was widespread large surface hoar (~10mm) almost everywhere we traveled, even in wind-exposed and sunny areas in the alpine. Problematic areas are isolated to heavily wind-loaded features and it would be hard to find a location where a slab could break more than ~20m wide, though any ride would be ugly right now.