Aspen

Avalanche

michael ferrara · Mar 13, 2014 · Aspen

Weather

partly cloudy, wind 5-10 gusting to 15, air temp -7c

Snowpack

snow pit was dug 10 meters below ridge in small bowl on easterly aspect. snowpack was 200 cm deep. the top 20 cm was a meltfreeze/windpack crust. Below that was 150cm of well bonded moderate size crystal of one finger density with little discernible layers. at about 50cm was the start of the usual tg layer. Compression test was CN. as I skied to the valley floor and got further below the ridge the surface snow softened but retained a breakable crust. as I traversed the south facing slopes there were several small point releases of soft wet snow on top of the melt freeze layer. On the south faces of the valley floor snow had not warmed up sufficiently to eliminate the surface melt freeze crust that had developed requiring some effort to break thru to turn