Front Range
SnowpackIan Fowler Amanda Loughlin · Jan 4, 2025 · Front Range
Weather
Winds were SW moderate with some stronger gusts. Skies mostly scattered.
Snowpack
Below treeline the snowpack was abaout 50 to 70cm deep and was pretty much half and half, fist hard facets at the base and 4 finger snow from post Christmas loading above. Almost every open area in the trees produced large collapses that would shake small trees. As we climbed out of the trees it took the weight of a second skier to collapse the weak layer and cause two avalanches about 100yards away. The larger of the two was in an obviously cross loaded feature and the crown was probably 7 feet on lookers left and 1 foot on lookers right. The avalanche ran on the ground and had sizeable hard slab chunks in the debris. Digging a pit alongside the slide we found weak fist hard facets at the base of the snowpack and another weak layer about 70cm down of near surface facets. These near surface facets failed and propagated in an extended column test. Above treeline the snow is very wind affected and variable. Westerly aspects have almost no snow and other aspects are only holding consistent snow where it has drifted. On an easterly slope we found 50 to 90cm of snow with a melt-freeze crust capping 3mm basal facets. This crust failed easily in snowpack tests.