Aspen

Snowpack

Matt Huber · Mar 23, 2019 · Aspen

Weather

Skies were overcast and light snow fell most of the trip, little to no accumulation over the course of the trip. Ridgelines were not visible during most of the trip but when small windows of visibilityd come thru there was no snow being transported.

Snowpack

The total snowpack depth near 10,500 feet on a northeast aspect ranged between 250-280 cm. I was able to find a protected spot near the old crown to dig. About 10 cm of new snow was on top of a crust that formed over the past week of sunshine. The early March storms have settled into a very cohesive, homogeneous slab roughly about a meter deep. At about 95 centimeters from the ground a thin layer of 2 mm surface hoar is intact and was the initial failure layer for the below treeline portion of the massive avalanche here on 3/13. Other buried facet layers are visible but not reactive, likely from January. Depth hoar is rounding. I could not produce any results in the entire snowpack with Extended Column Tests