Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Mar 18, 2025 · Front Range
Weather
In a true spring storm day, there was snow, graupel, wind, clouds, and warm-ish temperatures.
Snowpack
I dug many quick pits, mostly on northerly-facing terrain, to look for the March 3rd layer but did not find this layer reactive in Extended Column Tests. Many of the northerly and southerly-facing slopes I traveled on today had snow depths of 150-300cm. In all of the pits I dug, I found a melt-freeze crust with some small facets below it about foot to a foot and a half below the surface. It seems unlikely that you’d be able to trigger an avalanche that breaks near the ground if you are looking at a snowpack greater than 150cm, but there is a small chance you could if you found a slope with a snowpack less than 150cm. Even the basal weak layer I looked at today was starting to gain some strength and did not fall out of the snowpit but was 4 Finger Hard with only one step difference to the other facets above it at 1 Finger hard.