Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta Sarah MacGregor · Dec 25, 2022 · Front Range
Weather
The weather today was relatively warm, with overcast skies all day. We received snow flurries with a mixture of graupel throughout the day. Light winds mostly out of the west with not a lot of snow moving around above or near treeline.
Snowpack
Most places we traveled today had a couple of inches of new snow. In our travels below treeline we found a consistent 50cm to 70cm of snow that was supportable on all aspects. I dug several quick handpits and found a 4 Finger slab resting on top of Fist hard facets near the ground. As we poked around, we noticed that the below treeline snow was much more supportable with our skis on where our ski penetration only went into the new snow instead of to the ground. We did not notice any cracking or collapsing throughout the day. The winds picked up around 10,000ft, but it didn’t seem to me moving a lot of snow around to create a concern. I dug a pit at 11,200ft on a northwest aspect with a snow height of 139cm. An Extended Column test produced a medium result (ECTP15@97cm) in the upper portion of the snowpack. The slab propagated where the upper portion of the snowpack is starting to facet. I did not notice a failure at the ground, but there is about a meter of snow that is resting on top of very weak snow near the ground.