Grand Mesa
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek · Jan 20, 2023 · Grand Mesa
Weather
11F in Redstone at 7:00 warming to 23F at Powderhorn by 9:30. Mostly Calm with an occasional Moderate gust and Light wind transport along the rim of the Grand Mesa. Cloud coverage began Scattered and increased to Overcast by 14:00 with light precipitation (S-1) beginning around 15:00.
Snowpack
The snowpack on most slopes that are not wind-scoured is uniformly 190-250cm deep. Wind-scoured southerly aspects have a height of snow (HS) around 130-180cm. Sunny, southerly slopes facing south and southwest lack any sign of a persistent weak layer (PWL) in the snowpack and are composed of three prominent melt-freeze crusts (MFcr) with a thick (20-30cm) MFcr making up the base of the snowpack and 1F to 4F hard on the hand hardness scale rounded grains in between crusts with decomposing fragmented and precipitation particles making up the top one to two feet of the snowpack. Long column snowpack tests (ECTs and PSTs) on these slopes show non-propagating failures on buried MFcr's. Slopes facing northwest to east through southeast have a prominent PWL at the base of the snowpack ranging from 1F-to F hard. The PWL here is composed of three to five millimeter depth hoar that is showing clear signs of rounding (rounded corners, rounding edges, large bonds between grains) but is still the main layer of concern. This PWL is buried five to seven feet deep underneath a mostly 1F to P hard slab on most slopes. On wind-sheltered slopes the slab is 1.5 meters thick and holds 14 inches of snow water equivalence (SWE).
Avalanche
Two small avalanches below cornices observed.