Aspen
SnowpackBrian Lazar · Feb 17, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Cool temps but felt warm with the sun. Clouds hung on around peak level until late morning before dissipating. Calm below treeline with moderate northerly winds at ridgetop
Snowpack
New snow measured around 6 inches below 10,000 ft with closer to 10 to 12 inches near the top of Marble Peak. Snow is low-density, but did show signs of settling on sunny slopes by around 11AM. This created very soft (4F-) soft slabs at the surface, but unable to get anything bigger than a lunch tray to break around skis. Very little wind effect at lower elevations with more effect in exposed areas as you move into the near treeline elevations. Areas with signs of wind drifting are suspect and you can trigger avalanches breaking on the underlying near-surface facets in these locations. Although I didn't see any natural avalanche activity other than very small surface sluffs, wind-loaded slopes look primed for human-triggered avalanches. Drifting patterns are somewhat complicated. It's obvious the snow initially came in on southwest flow, loading northerly slopes. But, winds were out of the north today and beginning to build thin wind-drifted slabs on southerly slopes. You need to look for stiffer wind-drifted slabs on both northerly and southerly slopes.