Front Range
AvalancheBen Pritchett · May 9, 2025 · Front Range
Weather
Partly cloudy in the morning, becoming mostly cloudy in the afternoon, with light northerly winds.
Snowpack
Above the treeline, the recent storm deposited a thick, exceptionally dense layer that is now about two feet thick. During the storm, variable easterly and northerly winds scoured many start zones and filled gullies with deep drifts. Below the recent storm snow, I probed stout melt freeze crusts on all aspects above treeline, and lower on the mountain, the recent snow mostly fell on dirt. I measured around 6 inches of snow water equivalent at just over 13,000 feet in a fairly representative location. In the morning, recent meltwater was frozen in a stack of thin crusts in the top few inches of the snowpack. Midday, these crusts melted, and skiers above Glen Cove were pushing small wet avalanches on stopes steeper than about 40 degrees, but none gouged more than a couple of inches deep.
Avalanche
I saw a few very small skier-triggered Loose Wet avalanches midday.