Front Range
SnowpackIan Fowler · Dec 18, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
Winds were light which is unusual for this area.
Snowpack
Below treeline there was basically a faceted snowpack with very little structure. On east aspects we did see signs that there had been some little thin slab/sluffs in terrain close to 40* which had been small and were now mostly refilled. I imagine theses were from the winds over the weekend. Near treeline the snow varied greatly accross the terrain. On northerly aspects the snow was mostly facet top to bottom with an occasional wind skin. On easterly aspects near treeline we found the most extensive wind-drifting of the trip with pencil hard wind-slabs at the surface that made us turn back from one of our possible descent options. On this same aspect we dug and found a facet crust combo sandwiched about 40cm below the surface (half-way down the snowpack). This was had a knife hard crust and Extended Column Tests on this layer did not react or where very hard. When we did a Propagation Saw Test we got cut lengths of 40cm and 20cm, to end, on a 100cm column. This basically means the higher crust is currently protecting the lower snowpack but if you find a thinner area of the crust, as you travel to a more northerly, aspect you could trigger a slide that runs on this crusts that could be very large. We finally traveled up to some above treeline northerly and northeasterly terrain. For this profile we were under the main Nokhu Crags northface that is a very sheltering feature. The layering we found here was probably similar to higher more exposed aspects but the hardnesses were likely softer. In this area we were able to get moderate results with propagation on an ECT on the facets buried on 12/9 down about 25 cm. The slab above was soft but still propagated.