Front Range
SnowpackNick Barlow · Mar 8, 2017 · Front Range
Weather
Breezy below treeline in the flats, very calm in sheltered northeast-facing terrain/glades. Winds increase as I neared treeline. Mountain wave and lenticular clouds after lunch.
Snowpack
Complex upper-snowpack structure, with 3 identified weak layers. Two layers of near-surface facets in the upper ~45cm, sandwiched between denser slabs. Old layer of buried surface hoar (SH) 75cm down. Easy to identify in pit wall, and marginally reactive in column tests. Both near-surface facet layers seem to lack a cohesive overlying slab (in this area). Failures did not want to pop off the column or propagate - they mostly crumbled. However, the failure plane was quite smooth on these weak layers (see picture). Buried SH layer was surprising to find. Mostly broken and fragmented feathers and plates, looked more like near-surface facets. The remaining large SH grains were unusually thick, icy, and striated. They almost looked like depth hoar. Suspect they underwent further faceting over the past month 1/2. I've never seen buried SH like this.