Aspen
AvalancheBrandon Levy · Feb 10, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Scattered to broken cloud cover throughout the morning in Upper Express Creek with increasing northwest winds more cloud cover appeared later after midday. Despite the increase in wind speed I did not observe any blowing snow or wind transport.
Snowpack
The snow surface in the alpine is wind effected and firm. Ski penetration is 0cms to 5cms. There are some ripples on the snow surface in the near treeline elevation band but the snow is still soft with ski penetration around 15cms. There are still 20-35cms of near-surface faceted grains just under the slightly wind effected surface near treeline. I observed several localized and shallow whumps when approaching above treeline terrain on northeast, east, and southeast-facing slopes. I dug a hasty profile after a collapse that traveled approximately 50ft from when I stepped onto the slab. It was on a northeast-facing slope at around 12100'. At this location an extended column test produced a propagating result after 11 taps (ECTP11 down 35cms on 1mm FCsf). While excavating the test the layer of near-surface faceted grains that acted as the failure layer, below the wind packed snow spilled out of the profile and I was unable to produce a "clean" wall.
Avalanche
No new avalanches observed