Front Range
SnowpackDominic Rickicki · Mar 15, 2022 · Front Range
Weather
CLR Skies with light to moderate winds. Blowing snow seen mostly on the divide.
Snowpack
We started the day touring into the elevator shaft couloir on hallet peak. Given recent observations and personal local knowledge we felt good about the snowpack likely being mostly a mix of firm wind affect and sun crusts. While touring up the east side of the apron we were slightly surprised to find lots of crust/facet sandwiches while probing with our poles. We stopped under a cliff on the east side of the apron to reassess and upon digging found a rather shallow 110 cm snowpack with 50 cm of basal facets, along with facet/crust combos in the upper pack and a firm wind slab in the uppermost pack. Given where we stopped was a higher ridge feature we assumed the concavities may hold deeper snow. We probed in these areas and were getting average 200cm depth. Did not feel like there was basal facets but the crust facet combos in the upper pack were still present. These layers seemed pretty stubborn on hand shears, but given the structure so close to the surface we bailed on the line and moved to the haiyaha couloir where we found good hot pow turns and an upper pack of similar density snow. There was a lot of soft slab debris at the base of the apron on elevator shaft and some higher in the run.