Front Range
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Mar 5, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
A relatively warm and very windy March day. The sky was partly sunny, with clouds increasing throughout the day, but not enough to call the day partly cloudy.
Snowpack
An overall weak and shallow snowpack at all elevations. Below treeline, snow heights ranged from 30-80cm in wind-loaded spots, but anytime I got off an established skin track by ski penetration was almost to the ground. I did note some localized cracking just underneath my skis, but nothing that was shooting out more than two feet from my skis. Near treeline is more of a mixed bag of conditions from sheltered areas with 80-130cm and non-sheltered areas less than 30cm to wind-loaded features with 130cm of snow. I dug two pits near treeline in more sheltered areas; the first pit was on a west-facing slope around 11,500ft. This snow pit contained no layer harder than 4 Fingers on the Hand Hardness Scale, which comprised 83cm of snow. The November or Early Season Facets of this area are still in play. I got easy propagation results with an Extended Column Test (ECTP5&7@ 40cm). The other pit dug was on an east-facing slope with 105cm of snow. Again, this snowpack was made up of nothing harder than 4 Fingers. In this snowpit, I saw harder propagation results (ECTP25 @25cm) in one test, but I could not repeat this result. While we did not travel above treeline much due to high winds, we noted very wind-affected slopes with “tiger stripping” and sastrugi snow. We did not see any signs of recent avalanches.
Avalanche
No avalanches were observed