Front Range
AvalancheAnonymous · May 6, 2020 · Front Range
Weather
At 11,500' at 10:15am on 5 May 2020: Temp 33F, clear skies, light sustained winds but gusts to 20mph.
Snowpack
At 11,500' at 10:15am on 5 May 2020 on a north facing slope below the Richthofen/Mahler saddle: Snow depth: 250cm There was about 1-3" of windblown fresh snow on top of an extremely solid melt/freeze crust. It looked like meltwater had percolated down to about 8", and was frozen solid at the time of observation. The snowpack did not appear to be consolidated below that, but was still very dense. We didn't test the hardness of the individual layers, but there were about 3 layers that required some force to break through with a probe lower in the snowpack. The snowpit was only dug about 3' down. A photo is attached but due to the slope aspect it was slightly shaded.
Avalanche
We did not see any avalanches occur, but we did see debris from some, likely over the warm days late last week. Nothing seen on the slope of interest (N. facing slope below the saddle), but we saw debris numerous loose wet avalanches between 10,500' and 12,000' coming down from rocky areas, mostly on NE, E, SE, and S facing slopes. There was evidence of a moderately sized loose wet avalanche that ran on a SE facing slope almost to the shore of Lake Agnes. A picture of this one is attached, but it came out a little over exposed. The avalanche is located in the right side of the photo taken from the opposite shore of Lake Agnes.