Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek · Feb 17, 2023 · Aspen
Weather
Thursday February 16 - Sky coverage of Few with Strong winds and Intense wind transport along ridgelines from northwest, north, and northeast loading southerly-facing slopes. Friday February 17 - Clear beautiful day with Light to Moderate westerly winds at ridgetop and no snow transport. Saturday February 18 - Few clouds with Moderate westerly winds and Moderate ridgetop snow transport. Cold, clear, starry nights Thursday and Friday night.
Snowpack
The Castle Creek drainage has a snowpack about 1.5 to 2 meters deep on wind-sheltered slopes near and above the treeline. Wind-loaded slopes above the treeline are consistently 3 meters deep or deeper. The old snow surface prior to the mid-week storm was weak on Thursday morning showing obvious signs of instability in snowpack tests and numerous recent avalanche but this layer appears to have adjusted to the new load very quickly and was no longer the primary weak layer of concern by Friday afternoon. There is a lack of mid-pack weak layers on most slopes with some crust/facet combinations on southeast-facing slopes at upper elevations but the main weak layer of concern continues to be the basal facet layer from mid-November. This is slowly trending towards Unreactive but the Persistent Slab avalanche problem at Specific/Stubborn-> Possible still fits this area for now.
Avalanche
A small avalanche cycle occurred around February 16 with most avalanches in the Ashcroft area failing on northerly, wind-loaded slopes and D1 in destructive size with at least two D2 avalanches (one on NW ATL and one on SE ATL) and none in the Castle Creek drainage stepping down to the ground.