Front Range

Snowpack

Witnessed the top ~1" layer of surface crust crack under our skis while skinning up. At 10:00am, at ~11,700'(top of treeline for that area) dug a pit to ground, due south facing aspect, on a slope of ~25 degrees. From the top down: 1" fresh snow, 1" crust, 4" highly consolidated slab, 1" crust, 12" highly consolidated slab, 4" oddly highly consolidated HIGHLY faceted layer (grain size ~2-3mm?), then the bottom 20+" was alternating crusts and sugar snow, getting worse the further down you went. During compression test, the top 1" crust moved with a few very light taps (CT2), then snowpack finally failed at bottom of the 4" consolidated slab with 6-7 VERY hard slaps (~CT27, Q2-Q3). After compression test, stood/jumped on remaining column with skis on and couldn't get any more failures. By lunch, skied north facing aspects of 80's and 90's and had solid, but wet snow with large (~6-14") snow balls rolling with us. Talked to 3 other skiers who skied the 110's on the south facing aspect, and they reported no upper crust at ~1:00pm