Grand Mesa

Snowpack

Brian Lazar · Dec 7, 2013 · Grand Mesa

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Weather

Cold, windy, and snowing. Visibility was next to zero making travel and even driving treacherous and difficult. Strong SW winds were blowing lots of snow around and loading lee slopes. Hard to gauge new snow amounts as due to strong winds and lots of drifting, but estimated around 6 inches in last 24 hours.

Snowpack

Fairly deep snowpack for this early in the season, with average HS around 175cm. Snowpack structure was approximately 40-50cm of F storm snow over a stiffer (1F to 4F) mid pack slab around 50-60cm thick. The bottom 50cm or snow was weak faceted snow that made off trail snowmobile difficult. Releases in the storm snow will are likely on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. Most pronouced loading on N-E aspects