Aspen

Avalanche

Dylan Craaybeek, Brian Lazar · Nov 22, 2024 · Gunnison

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Weather

Few clouds, calm wind gusting light from the west, and warm temperatures.

Snowpack

The snowpack on most northerly slopes near and above treeline is weak composed mostly of 4F to F hard (on the hand hardness scale) facets and decomposing fragmented grains. You can find a thin (less than 1 foot thick), soft (1F- to 4F hard) slab from the last storm on some wind-loaded north, northeast, and east-facing slopes but mostly this snow remained soft and developed into near-surface facets. Where we found the soft slab in a wind-loaded feature below the ridgeline it showed stable results in snowpack tests (ECTx). Several meadows below treeline had surface hoar growth but that seemed isolated to below treeline, shady meadows.

Avalanche

One skier-triggered Loose Dry avalanche on a very steep northeast-facing slope just below ridgeline around 11,700 feet.