Front Range
AvalancheRyan Lewthwaite · Nov 27, 2019 · Front Range
Weather
A brisk morning for the lower valleys with minus temperatures. The temperature was about 25F degrees and the skies were mostly cloudy. The winds were transporting snow into bannners at ridgelines around 15 mph, while below treeline the winds were calm. No new snow in the last 24 hours.
Snowpack
While the most recent snow only amounted to a couple inches for Loveland Pass, other areas of the Front Range Zone collected near record amounts for a 24 hour duration. For our chosen location on Mount Trelease we had little more than a dusting to a couple inches. The new snow above treeline was being transported by the light winds to lee slopes facing north through east, but there was not a firm wind-drifted slab. We found isolated wind-drifted slab formations in terrain features that exhibited localized cracking, but nothing too alarming. A thin and breakable wind skin higher in elevation was also noted on the surface snow. There is really weak faceted snow sitting above and below a melt-freeze crust. This crust is located 10 to 20 cm deep in the snowpack depending on aspect. The crust is knife hard so we think it would take a large load to collapse weak layers beneath this crust. There are no immediate concern of instability. We observed LOW danger in terrain below treeline. In most below treeline areas the snowpack was less than a foot deep with many objects protruding through the surface. Near treeline the snowpack was deeper but we could not find a slab stiff enough to propagate fractures in stability tests. We would still approach any wind-loaded north through east slopes with caution.
Avalanche
No new avalanches to report.