Front Range
SnowpackAnonymous · Mar 6, 2011 · Front Range
Weather
Snowing lightly most of the afternoon, heavily at times, with some gusts. High misty cloud cover with some sun getting through. On the drive (below 9000') rain mixed in with the light flurries.
Snowpack
A couple inches of very new snow, up to 4-5 inches in some favored places near trees. Scoured to an icy hardpack with wind features many places in the alpine, where a brittle 4-5 inch crust was breaking leaving areas of shallow debris below some of the cornices. A pit was 175 cm deep on a NNE facing 30 degree slope in a gully opening just below treeline at 11K. About 8 cm of very new snow and 10 cm dense soft snow failed on crusty layer with 11 taps, Q2, and with many hard taps a few more layers failed at 35 cm, 45 cm, and 70 cm deep, Q2-Q3.