Grand Mesa

Snowpack

Matt Huber Brandon Levy · Dec 6, 2018 · Grand Mesa

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Weather

We had moderate snowfall throughout the trip, with 2 to 3" of new snow on our skin track as we exited back to the truck 3 hours later. The wind was calm with no noticeable loading. Airtemp, 21F

Snowpack

11,015' N aspect. Total snowpack height was 50". The top 32" consists of a snowpack that gradually increases in hardness from fist stellars at the surface down to 1 finger rounds. Unfortunately, this is resting on 4.5" of facets, a thin rain crust then 12" of well developed depth hoar to the ground. We performed a PST on the bottom of the raincrust, observed failure at 5cm into the cut, with propagation continuing uninterrupted through the block. 5/100 end