Front Range
SnowpackSpencer Logan · May 25, 2010 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
Gusty SW winds in morning, died down by early afternoon. a trace of new snow, but all drifted into old tracks or 2 cm thick windslabs. Broken skies and high clouds kept the snow from softening rapidly.
Snowpack
Huge melt-down Sat/Sun. Dust layer now exposed to about 12k, and becoming very prominent. Monday's temps froze the upper 30 cm of the snowpack solid. The dust layer had a 1 cm thick ice lens at the base. We avoided slopes with the potential for deeper saturated layers (stayed high in localized drainage patterns, so found no weak or saturated layers in top 50 cm of snow. Dusty areas developing verglas with significant melt-water production just beneath. Made for cool skiing. Saw little to no activity that ran on Monday, and not much that obviously ran Sunday. Most of the WL and small WS we observed were from Thu/Fri.