Aspen
AvalancheDylan Craaybeek, Brandon Levy · Mar 19, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Temperatures of 20F at the Independence Pass trailhead at around 8:30AM quickly warmed to above freezing temperature by 10:00AM with Clear sky cover and Calm winds. Occasional light gusts of wind but remained sunny and Calm for the duration of our fieldwork.
Snowpack
The dry-spell facet layer on northerly and east-facing slopes continues to be reactive in snowpack tests and with recent avalanche activity. The overlying slab is around 10-30cm thinner around Independence Pass than other areas of the Aspen zone. Southerly slopes have a number of melt-freeze crusts in the upper third of the snowpack and one 90cm snowpit on a south-facing slope near the treeline showed signs of liquid water making it through the entire snowpack to the ground and refreezing with nighttime temperatures.
Avalanche
I remotely triggered four separate avalanches from the same collapse around 1000 feet away from the furthest crown. The initial failure of the weak layer sounded like a small collapse with no shooting cracks but after a few seconds I witness avalanches release on separate slopes one after the other. The avalanches failed on the January-February dry-spell layer with crown faces ranging from 2 feet to over 8 feet thick. The avalanches were triggered from an east-southeast-facing slope around 11,600 feet and propagated to 12,400 feet in elevation and over 1000 feet wide. Several natural avalanches from recent days were also observed and coded separately: Independence Mtn. D2: https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/obs/obs_report.php?obs_id=70907 Geissler Mountain: https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/obs/obs_report.php?obs_id=70908