Front Range
SnowpackRyan Zarter · Nov 26, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
Clear skies and calm winds. Temps warmed to the low 20s. Hst at BP study plot for storm 4 was 7"/0.6" and Hs is 16".
Snowpack
I traveled on northerly slopes below and near treeline. I found a shallow snowpack that was for the most part lacking a slab. I was able to trigger one small avalanche on a steep and heavily wind-affected feature. In a few other wind-affected areas I had some very localized cracking around my skis. I had a single collapse in an open meadow. The takeaway is that I had to look pretty hard for wind-affected snow to find any signs of instability. I dug on a north aspect and found faceting snow sitting over basal facets/depth hoar. There is a decomposing MFcr on top of the basal facets from the warm spell after the snow in October. I had non-propagating failures on this layer.