Front Range
Avalanchewil Rickards · Apr 24, 2017 · Front Range
Weather
Berthoud Pass - Mixture of sun and light flurries. No wind.
Snowpack
Interesting. Before leaving the car I was most thoughtful about wind loaded slabs due to the recent 6" of snow with SW wind accompanying it. What showed up in the pit were some very solid ice crust lying on less well bonded snow and slabs of spring snow on top of that. Compression test got the layer at 40 cm's to collapse on the 5th hit from the shoulder. Fairly clean sheer (Q2). Pit was dug on NNE slope at 11,800'. The other interesting thing was how much water was traveling through the pack, especially considering it was dug at 10 am and tempretures were still hovering at 32. My wrist was soaked. The crusts (2 well developed ones) were about 1cm thick and pretty strong. What was beneath the lower one was not. We felt confident enough to ski lines of 35Ëš avoiding deep slabs and managing slough on lesser slabs. Watching those crusts as the snow settles further is going to be the order of business. Corner Pocket & Bride of Frankenstein were both fun, crusty edging under a layer of heavy powder. We were done by 2.00 the final run down the 110's (SE facing) was a beautiful corn run.
Avalanche
Evidence of small wet slides off rock bands and small cornice collapses from the previous day.