Front Range
AvalancheRyan Zarter · Mar 1, 2022 · Front Range
Snowpack
The snow on northerly aspects below treeline remained cold and winter-like today. I dug below an old crown line on a north aspect hoping to find a snowpack representative of the post-mitigation snowpack in the 80. Hs was 76cm, and I found a faceting slab over larger facets on top of an old melt-freeze crust (probably the old bed surface). I saw propagating ECT results at the interface between the faceting slab and the larger facets. The snow surface on east to south aspects below treeline was showing the effects of warming throughuot the day, with the upper 5cm becoming moist to wet. Looking around on south aspects near and above treeline, the obvious sheen indicated the snow surfaces were warming up.
Avalanche
I saw numerous very small wet loose avalanches on steep road banks on the west side of Berthoud Pass, as well as around I-70 and Loveland Pass. Looking into First Creek on Berthoud, there were numerous west loose avalanches, up to D1 in size, on a steep, rocky east aspect.