Front Range
AvalancheSeth Beers · Feb 13, 2017 · Front Range
Weather
Temp: Not observed, but warm w/ greenhouse Sky: Ranged from Few to Obs (Opaque Obs w/ Greenhouse effect) Wind: Light (W) Precip: No to S-1
Snowpack
- HN: 5cm, with drifting up to ~15cm in E / NE lee terrain NTL & BTL. - HN on all elevations & aspects sat on top of fairly stout crusts - Firmer sun crusts on S & E slopes with softer MFCR on shaded N & NE slopes. Ski Pen never went below crust level on any aspect but crusts were consistently breakable directly underfoot while skinning. - Observed substantial faceting around all rocks, shrubs and treewells from last weeks' warming. Full pack faceted out. I'd be aware of this in areas w/ persistent slab issue as it could amplify these features ability to become trigger points for leftover FC / SH layers. - Test pit on ~30* S slope @ 10900 showed the following: HS of 90cm. Below sun crust and HN was a 40cm slab of progressively stronger rounding facets to rounds (4F to 1F). This sat on top of a 40cm stack of moist, rounding facets of slightly varying hardness. MFCR was already softening at 1100. - Test results showed 1x CTE, SC at ground and 1x ECTP 13, RP down 50 at the round / rounding facet interface. - Interesting note on the ECTP result was that it was planar in character but did not slide easily as the moisture in the lower layer seemed to hold it tight. Placed less influence on the CT result because some small deadfall that could have influenced the result. Bottom line was even with the RP class, we were still concerned of the result and decided to avoid avalanche terrain on this aspect and stick to slopes where we did not see a substantial persistent slab issue.
Avalanche
HS-N-R2-D2 - Older wind slab off of E slope of Mt. Trelease, 200' x 600' likely ran over one-week ago. Observed originally on 20170214 and crown (avg 3') was completely refilled from strong W winds during the week.