Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek · Feb 8, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Single digits temperatures in the valley bottom this morning warming to high teens to low 20's F throughout the day. Clear skies all day with mostly Light west-northwest winds gusting Moderate. Light snow transport above the treeline. Another sunny day preceded by a cold clear night.
Snowpack
Westerly slopes above the treeline are mostly stripped of snow with a thin snowpack in protected gullies and concave terrain features. Here, you will either find a thin snowpack made entirely of large faceted grains and a thin wind slab on top or wind-scoured hard packed snow. Below and near the treeline, northerly aspects held 1.5-2 meters of snow throughout much of East Snowmass Creek. This snowpack is composed of 4F to 1F hard facets and depth hoar at the base of the snowpack, a P to 1F hard slab over 1 meter thick, and 30-50cm of weak (F-), cohesionless near-surface faceted particles. The January 7-10 storm has faceted and is also sluffing with the surface snow. The mid-pack slab (holiday storms) is showing obvious signs of faceting at the top of the slab but remains 1F hard and cohesive. In most areas ski pen and boot pen won't look drastically different penetrating through the weak surface snow to a supportable slab. Southerly slopes 30-45 degrees have a thick, supportable melt-freeze crust. On southerly slopes less than around 30 degrees a breakable melt-freeze crust makes for difficult travel.
Avalanche
On northerly facing slopes near and below the treeline a Loose Dry avalanche was triggered a on every turn (D1-D1.5). These loose avalanches were picking up speed faster than expected and running further into low angle terrain that expected. Loose Dry avalanches from northwest aspect above the treeline coded here: https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/obs/obs_report.php?obs_id=69630