Front Range

Snowpack

Anonymous · Jan 2, 2011 · Front Range

Weather

still cold, but warm compared to the past few days. we experienced a random moderate gust here and there but winds were generally calm to light in the trees. however, we saw blowing snow or scouring on nearly all ridges near 13,00 feet.

Snowpack

i dug at the top of the skin track, just before the glades bench out, below the alpine knoll. depth was 145 cm and the snowpack in general was rather stiff. the top 15 cm was a 50/50 blend of a 2 inch wind skin on top of DF. down to 100 cm was last weeks storm snow at 4F, the mid pack was 1F almost to the ground and just 10 or 15 cm of 2 mm facets above the ground. in terms of stability, the pack was much more reactive to shear, opposed to compression failure. STE@140Q2, STM@102Q2, STM@44Q2 and STM@GQ3. ECT with no results. the stiff mid pack was resting on a november sun crust, which has been gradually eroding. the SE aspect, below TL, is no more than 25 degrees on average.