Front Range
AvalancheTom Caprarella · May 7, 2018 · Front Range
Weather
broken clouds, very light wind, temps around 40*, felt hot when the sun broke through
Snowpack
ascending SE facing 30* slope at 11,700 at 930 AM we heard several small but audible collapses. We dug down with our hands and found about 4-5" of moist snow on a crust. Below the crust was moist, almost wet snow. It was easy to stick a pole through the snowpack. One of our group mentioned they thought they could hear water running through the pack. ascending E facing slope at 12,600 at 1030 AM we were skinning through moist and dense snow. Boot pen 5". the snow made for really good skinning conditions. didn't experience any signs of instability. On the steeper slopes above us there were several loose wet slides from the day or two days before.
Avalanche
Several small loose wet coming off the east ridge of Pettingell above Herman Lake on S-SW aspects. maybe 1 or 2 days old. It looked like they were running on a dust layer