Grand Mesa

Avalanche

Jaime Odin · Feb 17, 2023 · Grand Mesa

Snowpack

200cm surface height. Dug a pit down from 200cm to 80cm. 40cm new snow/storm snow (F), 20cm snow from the past few weeks appears to be bonding well (1F), followed by a small melt/freeze crust at 140cm and 20cm of (P) hard snow, followed by another small melt/freeze crust at 120cm and 20cm of (K) hard snow. The snow does form a slab above each melt/freeze crust however due to the nature of the 'rightside up' snowpack it appears to perform fairly stable in stability testing. Small fracture after 6 taps at 160cm (beneath the storm snow), vertical fracture after 16 taps at the 160-140cm layer (above the first notable melt/freeze crust). I put a saw through the 140cm layer and was able to saw through the entire layer before any fracture occurred. The snow on top and beneath this layer did form slabs.

Avalanche

N/A