Front Range
SnowpackIan Fowler · Jan 19, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
Warm but blowy and cloudy.
Snowpack
Below the treeline, I was able to still get good collapses in meadows and close to steep rollovers. This sometimes took a little work, but stuffing a tail or hoping next to a tree seemed to do it. Along the cat road through the trees, there were multiple bank slides triggered by the cat that, if triggered by a person, could well have buried them with the terrain trap of the road. These were mostly on a southeast aspect and were running on basal facets. In this area near treeline and above treeline the snow has been very affected by the wind both before, during and after the storm. In the snow profiles that I dug, there was not an obvious facet layer in the snowpack. This layer, which exists elsewhere, seems to have been affected by the wind, so it is less widespread in breezy areas. Failures in column tests were either failing at the ground from shoulder hits or in upper snowpack instabilities.