Front Range

Snowpack

Hi, I thought I would let you know what I saw in Herman Gulch in the front range today. We dug a pit at 12,500' on a fairly sun/wind sheltered NE aspect on the N side of Citadel. The snow looked and felt uniform down to about 3', which is as far as we dug. An isolated column sheared about 18" deep but only after quite a few firm whacks. It was not either clean or fast. Using a shovel, some shears could be produced about 4-6" down. The primary thing of interest was many large and long running sluffs. Some (off of slopes around 40+ degrees) were making substantial debris piles, maybe enough to bury someone. The slope we skied produced a sluff that was enough to knock a skier off of his feet. This was more like 30-35 degrees. The sluffs were in just the new snow and running on a crust 4-6" down.