Front Range

Snowpack

Spencer Logan · Nov 20, 2013 · Front Range

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Weather

Broken skies, with low ceilings. Visibility often obscured. Mild temps when the sun was out, and chilly in the fog.

Snowpack


North aspects near and below treeline
Typical snowpack: 20-30 cm of recent snow, 20-30 of very weak depth hoar, and in places a stout ice crust on the ground up to 5 cm thick. Easy Q1 test results in the DH layer. Snowpack much less reactive than over the weekend. Still touchy because the depth hoar is so weak, but cracks and whumpfs only going 10s of cm instead of meters.

Southeast and south aspects near treeline
Highly variable snow depth, from 10 to 80 cm. I was able to find the melt-freeze crust 20-40 cm below the surface in all areas that had snow prior to 11/16. Small column test failed cleanly under the crust, but large column tests did not indicate propagation.