Aspen
SnowpackBrian Lazar · Jan 24, 2017 · Aspen
Weather
Overcast to complete obscured skies, snowing most of the afternoon S-1 to S2. Some graupel. In the 4 hours I was out (11AM-3PM) about 2" additional snowfall accumulated. Calm to light below 9800 ft, then light to moderate southwest winds at close to 10,000 ft and ridgeline.
Snowpack
Recent storm snow has settled to around 30cm-40cm (F hard) above patchy surface hoar and low density precipitation particles near the old snow interface. Then a stiff (1F to P-) hard slab over a crust with 1mm facets above it around 70cm deep. Lower snowpack is strong with rounded layers with intermittent crusts. Surface hoar was tricky to find. Dug 4 snow pits and didn't find it until my third one, and even there is wasn't super obvious since it was mixed with precipitation particles. Surface hoar seems confined to a particular elevation band above 9800ft and extended up to at least 10,200 ft, and is less dependent on aspect. Likely to be found higher than that but I didn't get any further. SH coincided with elevations where vegetation was rimed from last wind event, providing a good visual clue of where to look for problematic structure. If this visual clue holds true, SH likely extends to around 11000 ft in elevation