Front Range
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Apr 23, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
The day started with clouds but then began to clear around 11:30 am. Temperatures were pleasantly warm, and had calm winds.
Snowpack
Friday night’s storm left about 20cm of low-density snow that fell on top of supportable melt-freeze crust. Around 10 am, southeast-facing slopes began to become dense and heavy, but I could not get any rollerballs to from. Northerly-facing terrain remained cool for much of the day. I found no slab formation on these aspects, even directly below ridgelines. I was curious about the potential of Loose Wet avalanches on southerly-facing terrain, so around 1 pm, I dug a snowpit on a south-facing slope near treeline. This pit was 190cm deep with 20cm of fresh snow. The following 70cm varied from pencil to knife hard with a mixture of ice columns within this layer. I had a hard time breaking through this layer with my shove. Underneath this layer, I found 1 Finger hard rounds that were moist. I could not get any propagating results with an Extended Column Test. My main concern will be when temperatures continue to warm, and more meltwater forms near the surface, 20cm of new snow will begin to sheer on top of the very supportable 70cm layer.
Avalanche
A saw a couple of small Loose Wet avalanches in extreme terrain around XYZ Chutes and in Second Creek