Aspen
AvalancheMorgan Boyles · Feb 17, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Light wind in the valley from the North was blowing some snow off the trees, Moderate winds were blowing snow off the peaks in the alpine. Scalloped look to wind loaded slopes in the alpine. Cold and beautiful clear day.
Snowpack
New snow at the hut (10,450') was 5" HST and measured 0.3" SWE. HS was 40-100cm in the meadow. This thinner snow is very faceted. On somewhat sheltered below tree line shady test slopes below the road cut, there were no results and not much of a slab. Occasionally ski pen was ~40cm, lots of facets in hand pits. Skiing though the meadow on my way out in the late afternoon I noticed a 1cm thick crust down 3cm in the new snow. Looks like a radiation recrystallization crust! not sure of its distribution but pretty cool!
Avalanche
Two small avalanches triggered by sloughs stepped down into the older wind slab fact combo on the North face of star peak as seen from the hut. SS-N-L-R2-D1.5-O/I and SS-N-L-R1-D1-O/I Also saw three small sloughs on Castle Peak, 1 L-N-R1-D1-N North, and 2 L-N-R1-D1 East)