Front Range
AvalancheIan Fowler · Feb 21, 2024 · Front Range
Snowpack
We dug at the edge of the slide about 50 vertical feet below the crown wall. Surprisingly, the slab was comprised of fist to 4finger hard-decomposing grains. There was an obvious layer of slightly larger facets sandwiched between two layers of rounding facets, which was the weak layer that failed. There was no apparent dramatic change in hardness between the slab and the weak layer, and maybe that is what has been catching people by surprise. Test results on the weak layer failed with propagation, but not in a super dramatic way. We wondered if there was a more pronounced weak layer lower down in the path. Lower down in the path, we observed a similar structure and non propagating failures on the weak layers.
Avalanche
coded here https://avalanche.state.co.us/observations/field-report/cd943f80-cbe5-4276-997b-3220600a1eb2 The avalanche was around 400ft wide at the top (measured on caltopo) with a crown height up to about 60cm (estimated). The debris was over 1 meter in most places and piled up over 2 meters deep in the middle.