Front Range

Avalanche

Mike Wallace · Nov 15, 2017 · Front Range

View on map

Weather

Sky: Few, Temp 5C, Winds: WSW 5-15, Precip: None, HN24: none

Snowpack

Third Pit in this area in 3 weeks. Crusts are evident but lower crust seems to be breaking down into facets and losing strength. Depth Hoar formation evident near the ground, so typical early winter snowpack set-up occurring in the deeper layers. Multiple crust matrix is showing that it will support some weight but failure is consequential and will be deep into the old snowpack, maybe to the ground. Multiple ECT's in this area produced one ECTP13 at the lower crust and ECTN11 and ECTN15 at the same interface. The ECTN's seemed to occur where the crust had disintegrated and left only facets where it used to be. Collapsing in these zones is widespread. Failure where this crust exists exhibited propagation potential and provided a weak bed surface that could fail and step into the facet layer to the ground after propagation. This presents a variability factor, where is the crust in tact to allow for higher propagation potential and where is it not in tact and full collapse into the older facets will occur.

Avalanche

SS-AEc-R2-D2-O. Avalanche occurred 11-6-17 and ran on the lowest crust that was still able to support some weight at that time.