Front Range
AvalancheSean Kutter · Dec 1, 2020 · Front Range
Weather
Clear and sunny. Started cold (5F) and warmed up to about 35F. Winds out of the West/Northwest at about 5-10 mph
Snowpack
Dug a snowpit on a Northeast convex rollover at 12,000ft on the east side of Loveland Pass. Obviously wind effected spot. Multiple weak layers found in the snowpack. Top 8-10cm of the snowpack was pencil hard sun/wind crust resting on about 10 cm of soft facets (Fist Hard). This was resting on a bed surface of another wind slab. (About 5-10cm also Pencil Hardness) Finally, all this was resting on soft facets going the rest of the way to the ground. The Hight of Snow was about 40 cm. I dug an extended column test and the top sun/wind slab broke on my 10th medium tap with propagation across the whole column. I was having a hard time getting the lower slab to break, but there were lots of facets underneath making me nervous.
Avalanche
Saw some old avalanche debris from the last storm cycle on the steep east facing aspects of the bowl. Lots of recent wind loading right below the ridgelines, especially on the northeast aspect