Grand Mesa
Quick reportDylan Craaybeek, John Rizza · Dec 29, 2025 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Clear sky, calm winds, and relatively cool temperatures near but below freezing.
Snowpack
There is a thick rain crust (1-3cm thick) about 4 to 6 inches beneath the snow surface. The crust is mostly supportable to the weight of a snowmobile but easy to break through by simply leaning onto one side of the slide and making the weight less distributed over a smaller surface area. Below the crust are well-developed facets and depth hoar down to the ground, and there are chains of facets developing on the bottom of the rain crust as well. The deepest snowpack we found was about 60cm deep. We measured 3.6 inches of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in a pit near Scales Lake Number Two, excluding the rain crust, which is a bit more than the nearby Mesa Lakes SNOTEL and a bit less than the Park Reservoir SNOTEL at 2.4 and 4.7 inches of SWE, respectively, both far below the 30-year median.
Avalanche
No avalanches observed