Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Nov 28, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
A sunny, warm day with light winds out of the west.
Snowpack
Jones Pass remains somewhat thin, even after the last storm. Coverage is slowly but surely growing. Near treeline remains very thin. In the open meadows, the snow height was only 10cm, just enough to travel on while going up. Some terrain features, like small gullies between the willows, held deeper snow, but only about 20-30cm. Most snow in this area was soft and weak. I found no slabs resting on top of these open meadows. Some of the northeast and east-facing chutes towards the pass held have 50-70cm of snow. While these slopes have the most snow, they are also the places where avalanches could happen. Above treeline, I also found a generally thin snowpack where the wind-drifted snow was about 50-70cm, but just 100ft away, it could be stripped the rocks. In a pit dug, I found about a 25cm slab (4-finger hard on the Hand Hardness Scale) resting on top of weak snow from November and early October. An Extended Column Test propagated with moderate results (ECTP15@ 25cm). I also found cracking and collapsing on several test slopes on this layer. The unfortunate part is that the places that have the most snow are also the most problematic.