Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Nov 18, 2021 · Front Range
Weather
High clouds started to move into the area around 11:30am. Temperatures remained below freezing all day. Noted a very small amount of snow transport towards the end of the day.
Snowpack
We were surprised at the amount of snow while driving up the pass. Below treeline is holding on to about a foot of snow in most areas; you can still see downed trees and branches sticking out of the snow. The snowpack near treeline ranges from one foot to two feet in places with continuous coverage across the slopes. There was about an inch or two of new snow from Tuesday night, this was sitting on top of a melt-freeze crust from the last couple of days of warm temperatures. We didn’t observe any signs of instabilities in the snow like cracking, collapsing, or hear whumpfing. What we did find, though, is a generally weak snowpack. We didn’t find a slab sitting over weak-faceted snow; it was just facets and crusts. The little snow we received on Tuesday at the ridgeline has more of a slab, but this was very isolated to at the ridgeline.