Grand Mesa
AvalancheBrian Lazar Brandon Levy · Jan 10, 2018 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Overcast to obscured skies. Moderate snowfall above 8200 ft. Moderate SW winds blowing some snow.
Snowpack
Thin but with a worrisome structure. Average HS is around 30cm. The top half of the snowpack is soft (F) new snow and rounding decomposed fragmented grains. The new storm snow was dense with a high water content, which was settling rapidly and creating slabby conditions. Cracking in the surface snow was confined to around your skis, but the slab will stiffen with time. The "midpack" slab is 4F and only a few inches thick, but has enough cohesion to communicate sudden collpase failures in ECT tests. The slab is breaking on a pronounced layer of 3mm depth hoar, with chains of depth hoar 10mm long. The problematic slopes are those with pre-existing snow cover allowing for a snowpack deep enough to cover surface roughness. Otherwise just soft recent and new storm snow on rocks and dirt.
Avalanche
none observed