Front Range

Snowpack

Snow starting to soften at 1130 am. Lots of solar radiation. Old wind slabs and sastrugi dominated snow surface conditions. Ski Pen 2-3 cm on average. Sun crust evident on steeper sunny slopes. Surface was mostly ~ 20cm thick hard slab, overlying a 3-4 cm softer layer, then another very hard layer that was impenetrable to a ski pole handle. Wind and sun protected N facing areas in trees still had a couple inches of soft snow on top of slab. Depth hoar certainly still present, but under very stiff slabs. Surface layers seemed to have stabilized since the weekend. Wind slabs showed no signs of propagating on the slopes we traveled today.