Front Range

Avalanche

Chris Benson · Feb 2, 2023

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Weather

Started cold with few clouds. Warmed up quickly with almost no wind. Southerly aspects were moist by 13:00 around 12,000’

Snowpack

We broke trail for around 1 mile mostly on S, SE, and E aspects. Surface hoar up to 8 mm was widespread. One pit on a SE aspect near treeline revealed Hs ~1 m and poor structure with both basal depth hoar and some buried NSFs down about 25 cm. Moderate and hard ECTP results were consistent on the NSFs. Got some east clean shears with shovel tilt test- it looked like some buried surface hoar about 2 cm from the surface. Yesterday, while touring in the area, we observed rapidly forming surface hoar on many different aspects, but especially in the shade.

Avalanche

We decided to go inspect a smaller avalanche in current creek on an east aspect above a steep roll. It was hard to determine the crown depth due to access issues, but seems similar to what we are seeing? fail in the snow pits about 25 to 30 cm down. Observed numerous avalanches of a similar character on three or 4 Different Rd. cuts this morning that I don’t think were there yesterday. Seems like they may have been triggered from plowing.