Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Dec 28, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
The weather today was a bit all over the place. Relatively warm temperatures made it feel more like a spring day than the end of December. The winds were relatively light out of the northwest, but they picked up a little as we left. It was snowing a little throughout the day, and the clouds limited our visibility.
Snowpack
Overall, it is fairly thin. We didn’t notice any collapsing while riding, but I saw a few small cracks within the new snow as we rode ungroomed roads. We found a north-facing slope at 11,500ft to dig a snowpit. We found a snow height of 91cm, and as soon as we stepped off our machines, we sank to the ground. We found about 20cm or 10 inches of new snow. This new snow rested on top of the December Drought layer. We noticed a smaller melt-freeze crust from November, but that was decomposing. Our Extended Column Test did not produce any failures; the whole column crumbled away. On a Propagation Saw Test (PST), we targeted the December Drought layer and 45/100 End. Another pit, a little lower in elevation on an east-facing slope, saw a similar snowpack structure, with a thicker slab of new snow resting on top of the December Drought layer and the basal facets. However, our Extended Column Test easily produced propagation results (ECTP10 at 67cm from the ground). A PST on the same layer produced results similar to those of the north-facing pit (45/105 END); however, we also targeted the basal layer in the second PST and got 30/105 END.