Front Range
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Apr 16, 2023 · Front Range
Weather
Slightly cooler than expected, but overall a pleasant day. No clouds but moderate winds along ridgelines from the west southwest which helped keep the snow surface cool.
Snowpack
A pleasant surprise to find soft, cold snow after last week's big warm-up, even though the last bit of snow came Saturday. Overall, I found a very supportive snowpack in my travels. I dug a pit on a north-facing slope above treeline around 12300ft. I noted about 16cm of new snow, which comprised a mix of wind-pressed snow resting on top of softer fresh snow. The melt-freeze crust from last week was about 10cm thick and roughly knife-hard. I found some facets healing around a meter down from the surface, but I got no propagation results in my Extended Column Test. A Compression Test yielded an easy result (CT5 @166cm ) just within the fresh snow that was a little wind-pressed. In the rest of my travels, I found the new snow thickening and becoming dense underfoot in more wind-effected areas. The moderate wind out of the west-southwest helped cool the snow surface for the day at upper elevations. On the egress, I noticed that the snow became grabby in sheltered areas near and below treeline.
Avalanche
I saw an old Loose Wet avalanche on a south-facing slope in the Williams Fork Drainage.