Front Range

Snowpack

Brian Lazar · Feb 28, 2013 · Front Range

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Weather

windy with gusts into the upper 30s/low 40s. Mostly overcast skies with a few rays of sunshine poking through for very brief periods. Cool temperatures, and lots of blowing snow loading east through south aspects.

Snowpack

Avg HS around 125cm near treeline, but highly variable. Depths decrease rapidly below treeline and are only around 75cm at 11,000 ft. Upper snowpack has 3 layers of facets in the top 60cm sandwiched between P hard slabs up to 2 feet thick. Bottom 40 cm of snowpack is 2-3 F depth hoar. Most concerning weak layer is about 60cm and is 2 mm F+ buried NSFs. This is the layer that fails in the video