Grand Mesa
SnowpackBen Pritchett · Feb 2, 2021 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Warm day with cloud cover decreasing in the afternoon. Light convective showers seen over the West Elks, but no snow on Grand Mesa.
Snowpack
The snowpack in this area has more than doubled in the last week. The base of faceted snow is exception weak, comprised of depth hoar up to 10mm in size. Cracking and collapsing was widespread, rumbling, and remarkably predictable. Only where the slab was a bit stiffer, where I'd notice a little less ski penetration would I not get collapsing when walking near rocks or stumps right away. In those stiffer areas, I'd have to try a little harder, and stick the tail of my ski through the slab to get the collapse. Several collapses rumbles for seconds, crossing large meadows in waves, shaking trees a long distance away. The collapsing, poor structure, and propagating snowpack tests extended onto southerly slopes as well. The slab formed from recent snow held 3-3.5" of SWE on the buried persistent weak layers was evenly distributed above 10,000'. This recent storm snow is 1-finger hard at the interface with the large-grained facets and softer near the surface. Recent warm weather has melted surfaces with lots of rills forming on southerly slopes. Amazingly,I still had many collapses on southerly slopes with cracks propagating on buried facets beneath the crusted rill-topped slabs.