Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek · Dec 7, 2023 · Aspen
Weather
Strong winds gusting extreme knocking me off my feet several times from the southwest. Intense wind transport with very effective wind-loading on east and northeast-facing slopes. Fairly warm day outside of the wind with broken to overcast sky coverage looking west into the elks and much more clear looking to the east. On and off light snowfall (S-1) throughout the day.
Snowpack
The wind-transported snow created hard slabs on specific terrain features where ski penetration was less than 1cm but without fail every time ski penetration increased to more than about 10cm on north, northeast, or east-facing slopes there were obvious signs of instability (cracking and collapsing). Most collapses were isolated to individual terrain features as the slab was not thick enough nor widespread enough to propagate failures across multiple terrain features aside from one slope scale rumbling collapse on a northeast-facing meadow. The snowpack is around 60-90cm deep on average but intense wind and sun made the total height of snow very variable in this drainage. Snowpack tests easily produced failures on the basal facets with both the faceted mid-November storms and last weekend's storm acting as the slab and large, well-developed depth hoar at the bottom 20cm of the snowpack acting as the weak layer. Southerly slopes saw some significant melting and refreezing this week with a thick (2-4cm) melt-freeze crust on most snow surfaces where the snow hasn't melted to the ground or blown away. North, northeast, and east-facing slopes near and above the treeline are the bullseye for dangerous avalanche conditions with northwest and southeast-facing slopes having an untrustworthy snowpack structure but lacking a slab.
Avalanche
Several recent avalanches on cross-loaded and wind-loaded slopes likely from today and two natural avalanches that I witnessed. At least one old, larger avalanche likely from last weekend's period of High avalanche danger as the debris is mostly covered.