Aspen
SnowpackMax Strotbeck · Mar 19, 2025 · Gunnison
Weather
Mostly calm winds below treeline, and light west winds near treeline causing light blowing snow. Temperatures were in the upper-teens to mid-twenties. Skies fluctuated between mostly broken and scattered cloud coverage, with a short period of overcast skies accompanied by very light snowfall that did not accumulate.
Snowpack
There was about 4-8” of new snow from yesterday’s storm. We found areas near treeline to be the most dangerous, where the new snow, in addition to old snow, had drifted and formed a harder and thicker slab above the now buried weak snow that developed during the dry spell prior to 3/13. In a snowpit on a north aspect near treeline where snow had drifted, we found a 45cm slab a top this weak layer, and extended column test propagated with hard taps here (ECTP26). After removing this slab, an informal long-column deep tap test resulted in propagation on another weak layer buried toward the beginning of this month, suggesting that if you trigger an avalanche here it could step down deeper in the snowpack and be more destructive. On a positive note, these weak layers are becoming thinner and are going through the rounding process.