Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Feb 26, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
A spring-like day. Temperatures were mild, with moderate westerly winds ahead of an approaching storm. Clouds moved into the area around 2 pm, lowering the ceiling to about 11,000ft. Snow also started to fall around 2 pm, but was not accumulating. We noted some graupel mixed into this snow as well.
Snowpack
We mainly traveled below and near treeline on south through west-facing slopes. Snow heights varied from 120cm to 215cm on most of these slopes. In most of the slopes we traveled, most of the snowpack felt relatively strong while probing. Southerly-facing slopes had a thicker (approximately 2-5cm) melt-freeze crust underneath about 5-10cm of new snow. Even on steep road cuts near the Michigan Ditch, it took a lot of effort to get anything to move, but I saw a couple of pinwheels from previous days of warm temperatures. I chose to dig a snowpit in a shallower portion on a west-facing slope which was 124cm deep. Most of the snowpack wasn’t as stiff as I had been probing in other places, but weaker snow at 4 Finger to Fist on the Hand Hardness Scale. The only stiff layer I found was a melt-freeze crust down 13cm from the surface, but this was not that stiff at 1 Finger. While most of this snowpack was facets, the grains looked like they were starting to heal slightly. My Extended Column Test did not produce any propagating result. While we did not travel on easterly-facing slopes, we observed some steeper slopes and saw no signs of recent avalanches. There was a lot of textured snow surface from the winds above and near treeline, though.