Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek, Jewel Campbell · Feb 9, 2025 · Aspen
Weather
Beautiful day with notable, intense wind transport all day along ridgelines but mostly calm along the valley floor.
Snowpack
Several slope scale collapses on low-angle terrain close to West Maroon Creek on north and southeast-facing slopes that shook small trees hundreds of feet away. Around 6 to 8 inches of new snow below treeline resting on top of a mix of supportable crusts and wet facets. Once we hit about 10,500 feet there was a noticeable difference in new snow totals and the moisture of the weak layer underneath the new snow. About 8 to 10 inches of 4F- to 4F (on the hand hardness scale) new snow rested on very well-developed, F- facets. This upper persistent weak layer is the weakest, most well-developed near-surface facets I've seen since the January 2022 dry spell. We started getting quiet collapses on every step into untouched snow and although the collapse was difficult to hear and feel, we could see cracks shooting up to and sometimes exceeding 100 feet across the slope. Wind-loaded slopes had much louder and more noticeable collapses. Extended column tests consistently failed after 1 tap on this upper persistent weak layer and also showed propagating failures consistently after 15 to 20 taps on the December drought layer about 50 to 70cm below the snow surface. The new slab did not seem cohesive or connected enough to cross over multiple terrain features but if we get more snow and the slab grows thicker and connects avalanche conditions will be very scary. On lower-elevation (under 10,500 ft) east and some southeast-facing slopes there was a fully supportable crust on slopes steeper than 20 degrees with about 4 to 6 inches of settled snow on top that seemed to be bonding well to the crust.
Avalanche
Observed several Loose Wet avalanches from last week's warm-up and several older large avalanches that nearly made it from ridgetop to valley floor, likely from the wind event in late January. Triggered a soft slab on a north-facing slope near treeline. This was the only open, steep slope we got close to and triggered an avalanche immediately. The new slab still seems too thin, soft, and disconnected for larger remotely triggered avalanches but I am confident you could trigger an avalanche on most steep slopes facing north, northeast, or east above 11,000 feet right now.