Front Range
AvalancheAustin DiVesta Ian Fowler · Mar 19, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
A beautiful spring day. High clouds began to move into the area around 4 pm. Winds were moderate around near treeline, with intense wind-loading on east-facing slopes above treeline.
Snowpack
In the morning, below treeline had a sold 2-5cm breakable melt-freeze crust from the previous day. However, as we moved into the near treeline area, we found soft wind-affected snow on top of a very hard (Knife to Pencil hard) layer down about 15-30cm. The wind and cold temperatures helped keep the snow surface cold and dry throughout the day on the more exposed slopes. On a northwest-facing slope, we dug and found a "trapdoor" structure with a very stiff mid-pack layer resting on top of weak faceted snow, but Extended Column Tests (ECT)did not produce any propagating results. We also dug a south-facing slope and noticed four different melt-freeze crusts in the upper 65cm of the snowpack. Sandwiched between the crusts, there were soft new snow particles from the several inches of fresh snow we received last week. The ECTs did produce a non-propagating result around a knife-hard melt-freeze crust. Additionally, we found a southeast-facing slope in a sheltered area near treeline that also had a lot of melt-freeze crusts in the upper 60cm. The ECT here produced a medium hard propagating result (ECTP17) on a layer of facets that were beginning to round. We also noticed that toward the end of the day around 2 pm that the southerly-facing slopes started to become saturated with a very moist snow surface.
Avalanche
Two avalanches were triggered by snowmobilers that were relatively small on an east-facing wind-loaded slope. Additionally, we saw two large avalanches on above treeline slopes on east-facing slopes from cornice drops in the Indian Peak Wilderness.