Aspen
Snowpackbritt ruegger · Dec 11, 2013 · Aspen
Weather
calm conditions and warm in the solar radiation toaday but quite cold in the shade digging around 1 pm. I noticed some pluming out toward electric pass area as we were skinning out express creek early in the a m but thats all the blowing snow i noticed throughout the day.
Snowpack
we skinned express creek road to the markley. Ascending the east facing slopes above the markley toward green mountain the snowpack was initially quite shallow at 40 cm or so and not very supportive to the skin. As we got toward 11000 feet we had a large collapse and shooting cracks on same aspect. We dug just above this and had HS of 84 cm in windloaded roll. Snowpack is generally shallow throughout area but with some variability in depth due to various wind patterns. above our profile on E aspect we skinned in low angle N facing basin and had two more collapses skinning to saddle at 11400 feet. Variable snowpack depths due to wind distribution but generally more supportive feel to skin and ski through this area. In Profile we had CTH Q1 on buried surface 40 cm or so below snow surface and no results on our extended column tests