Front Range

Snowpack

We dug two pits -- one BTL, N facing around 10,300 ft (dream chutes area) and one E facing NTL, 10400 ft by the alcove at the top of the DT apron. In the Dream Chutes area I probed depths from 150-200 cm. Our pit had HS 200 cm. MLK facets were obvious, but fairly strong (3 finger) @90 cm supporting a 110 cm slab. The slab above the MLK layer went in a column tests at hard hits from the shoulder. This layer was unreactive in an ECT (ECTX). We dug out NTL pit at the same elevation in very wind effected terrain. The snowpack in this area was over 3m deep in many areas, we targeted a thin area where the snowpack went from 50cm to over 3m in about a 15 foot span. Out pit had a depth of 50cm on one end and ~1 meter on the other. Here there was a stiff wind slab above facets, the facets were not as obvious as they were in the BTL pit, but more reactive. We did two quick ECTs, targeted this wind slab layer above facets--the slab in this pit test was about 30cm, but growing in depth as the snowpack became deeper and the facet layer is likely deeply burried in the wind deposited areas of the snowpack. The first we got results from the elbow with no propagation. On the second test the whole block release upon isolation.