Aspen
AvalancheBrian Lazar · Mar 8, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Cool temperatures with gradually clearing skies, and moderate northwest winds at ridgetop. Sun and little wind in sheltered areas and at lower elevations made it feel quite warm by 2pm.
Snowpack
2 feet of recent storm snow at lower elevations and around 4 feet at higher elevations began to rapidly settle this afternoon on all slopes but northerly. This was enough to create soft slabs that could communicate a failure by 2pm. Snow surfaces were moist and sticky by afternoon, and expect surface crusts to form overnight. Got one moderate collapse on steep south-facing slope around 30ft across.
Avalanche
On our last pitch to the road, one skier did a hard ski stop on the ridge above a convex roll above an approximately 38 degree slope and trigged an avalanche below the rollover. Slab was around 2 feet thick (recent settled storm snow) and around 30 feet wide, and broke on fragmented precipitation particles on top of a stout supportable crust. The avalanche ran around 250 vertical feet through open aspens. The avalanche took out two skiers' tracks in the middle of the feature from earlier in the day. Slope is east facing (just a few degrees north of east) at 9400 feet.