Front Range
AvalanchePayton Schiff · Jan 1, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
Calm winds and warm temps even >TL, partly cloudy skies
Snowpack
The meadows had been significantly affected by the wind that came thru on 20221222 and the 30cm or so of weak basal layers I'd been finding previously seemed to be completely gone. We observed significant cohesion throughout the entirety of the snowpack; a small 2-3in F hard wind slab sitting on top of about 1' of also F hard snow and then 4F-1F layers beneath to the ground both at the top and bottom of the meadows (NTL, N facing). In Moonlight Bowl, the southerly wind from the last storm created a super hard wind affected surface throughout the entirety of the bowl. We did not find one side of the bowl to be more wind loaded than the other.
Avalanche
We observed an avalanche that likely slid yesterday or the day before In X Chute (N facing, >TL). It looks like it broke from the cliffs near the ridge and either propagated down to the lower cliffs or broke off another crown as the debris ran past. It ran the entirety of the chute. With the new snow that fell, it was a bit hard to tell the size and type but I would classify this as a HS-U-R3-D2.5