Aspen
AvalancheBrandon Levy · Mar 2, 2020 · Aspen
Weather
Steady snowfall (1cm/hour) throughout the morning with a few moments of heavily filtered sunshine through the obscured cloud cover. Winds were light and increased around midday from the West. Felt warm with the temperature around 32F throughout the morning.
Snowpack
9.5" of new snow at the summit (8700') and about 12" on the Northeast facing slopes above Bears Gulch at 10000'. The snowpack on those slopes is deep at nearly 200cms. The storm snow was somewhat cohesive but only localized cracking occurred around skis. The storm snow was only fist hard but was still able to produce an easy sudden result in a mid-storm layer down about 25cms with a compression test. The interface of the storm snow and the old snow surface consisted of the remnants of a melt-freeze crust which was almost completely faceted. Elsewhere on the lower East facing slopes above SH133 the new snow rests on a rough melt-freeze crust. The warm temperatures and the brief periods of heavily filtered sunshine were making the snow below 9500' moist by 1100
Avalanche
Micro sluffs and plow triggered micro slabs failing in a storm layer observed on the road cuts on SH133