Front Range
SnowpackDominic Rickicki · Jan 28, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
S-2, light to moderate winds.
Snowpack
Digging a pit with my avalanche students today we found a 1F hardness in the depth hoar buried 180cm's down. Looking at the grains under a loupe they were rounding. (NE Aspect, Near Treeline) Tests results on this layer yielded a CT28 Sudden Collapse and ECTX. Doing non-standard hard deep taps on the ECT column to try and propagate this layer yielded no results. Near Treeline we noticed no slabbing or reactivity in the new snow. Above treeline the new snow was beginning to slab a bit but was not cracking or showing obvious signs of reactivity. Take these next obs for what they're worth... We dug our pit in a sheltered location not super characteristic of the terrain around it, in hopes of finding more preserved facets and shallower wind packed layers. In this pit about 20 cm down we found a 1cm thick weak layer of what appeared to be rounding facets. Tests yielded a CTV and ECTM Progressive Compression. I did a prop saw with no results but I believe the layer was a little thin for accuracy on this.