Aspen
SnowpackJustin Peacock · Feb 10, 2013 · Aspen
Weather
Weather came in as forecasted over the weekend. Winds were very calm to nil. Local storm totals around 5-9" of light density snow.
Snowpack
The snowpack was consistent with area forecasts and observations. Many to most areas completely faceted top to bottom. The new snow did not seem to provide enough additional load to change things much. Sunny aspects were crunchy under the new snow and made for fun skiing. Northerly and easterly aspects typically involved sinking knee to waist deep in facets. On our Sunday tour we headed out to the nice north facing terrain near the hut. From the top we eased in and dug around on lower angle terrain adjacent to our proposed line. Everywhere we looked there was no slab. As I was skiing, about half way down the slope, I felt supported and no longer on top of the bottomless facets, indicating a slab. Our 3rd skier down took a slightly steeper line and hit a trigger point (rock) in the compression zone (concave slope) as she came in to the stopping area. A 200-300' crack propagated mid slope. Fortunately it just wasn't steep enough to slide. The slab was very low on the slope and not in an obvious place. This is a great example of the highly varied distribution of the persistent slab problem and its touchy nature.