Front Range
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Mar 28, 2022 · Front Range
Weather
The morning skin up was warm, with mostly cloudy skies and windy. Around noon the cloud cover started to burn off, but winds remained moderate out of the west. Once the clouds lifted the temperature rose dramatically.
Snowpack
Today, I traveled on north through east to south-facing terrain at all elevations around Bulter Gulch. I found that today's snow surfaces below treeline were frozen even later in the morning and only started to warm up around 1:45 pm. As I moved near near treeline, I was surprised to see a firm crust on all aspects I traveled on due to the melt-freeze crust that formed in the last couple of warm temperatures. When I dug a snowpit on a north-facing slope near treeline with a snow height of 142cm, I found primarily dry snow throughout the snowpack with the expectation in the top 20cm. I did not get any notable propagation results in this pit. I moved over to an east-facing aspect and found a snow height of 131cm with a mixture of melt-freeze crusts within the upper 30cm. All of the layers in this pit were moist enough to form a snowball. I found a 3cm ice layer from the last couple of days. I was able to get an Extended Coloum Test to propagate with medium force on top of the ice layer. While there were still facets in the bottom portion of the snowpit, they seemed to be healing a little bit. I also dug a pit on a shallow north-facing slope above treeline with a snow height of only 65cm. The structure still suggests a persistent weak layer in the bottom 30cm of the snowpack with dry depth hoar ranging from 2-4mm in size. I did not get any notable propagating. On the descent on all aspects near treeline and above treeline, the snow did not soften up much and had somewhat of a zipper crust which made for heads up skiing.