Front Range

Snowpack

Ryan Zarter · Feb 12, 2025 · Front Range

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Weather

BKN skies, moderate west-southwest winds with much stronger gusts, temperature -7F. Hn 24 was 2". Plenty of effective wind transport.

Snowpack

Winds were moving plenty of snow around above treeline today, with localized cracking pretty common in the freshly drifted snow. I was looking around on southeast-facing slopes in the area to see if I could find the melt-freeze crust/facet combo near the surface that I've seen in other areas lately, but was unable to find it here. What I did find under the drifted snow was a very wind-hardened and firm old snow surface. My guess is winds in the area during the warmup helped to prevent a crust from forming where I was traveling today.