Grand Mesa
SnowpackJewel Campbell · Feb 3, 2024 · Grand Mesa
Weather
The day was overcast with low clouds and increasingly heavy snow in the morning, and higher clouds/lighter snow by midafternoon. Wind picked up and temperatures dropped a bit by midafternoon as well.
Snowpack
I found consistent coverage of 30-35 cm storm snow below tree line and near tree line. A thick melt-freeze crust was present on solar aspects just below the storm snow, and this layer collapsed annoyingly regularly while skinning and skiing. North aspects had a 1cm layer of buried surface hoar (up to 10mm feathers) just below the storm snow. Instability tests showed this layer of surface hoar to fail easily and propagate with stress applied. With a bit more stress applied the snow slid on the bottom 50cm layer of depth hoar. On all slopes a mid-pack slab was present sitting atop a weaker layer of facets and depth hoar.