Aspen
SnowpackJewel Campbell · Mar 15, 2024 · Aspen
Weather
Temps in the upper 30s. Overcast skies cleared up in the late morning, and the afternoon was partly cloudy with light, high clouds. Light breeze with moderate gusts from the southeast but not observable wind transport.
Snowpack
The snowpack felt settled while I was touring up Mt Adam. A surface crust was softening on below tree line southeast slopes. North facing trees near tree line had loose dry snow intact from this week's storm. East through southeast slopes had been hammered by wind, and the northeast shoulder I was traveling on was blanketed in wind slabs and wind crusts. There was between 3-7" of new snow which had rapidly faceted and was bonding well with the early March snow. At the 3/2 interface I found a thin layer of small facets forming under the hardening dust layer. It looks like the dust layer is forming it's own crust within the slab from early March. The thin layer of facets failed with moderate results in column tests. Even as I broke the snowpit down with my shovel, the snowpack sheared on this layer consistently, it's about a foot and a half buried, and easy to affect. The other layer of concern is the layer of buried surface hoar, which is about two and a half feet buried. It did not fail in my column tests, however in a propagation saw test it propagated far more rapidly than the 3/2 layer. I expect this layer to propagate wide and fast if affected on a slope-scale. I was looking for natural avalanche activity on west facing slopes which experienced wind loading this week, but wasn't able to identify any. The western faces of the Sawatch mountains were unusually snowy due to the less common storm pattern. but did not seem to experience an avalanche cycle.