Front Range
AvalancheJason Maurer · Dec 3, 2016 · Front Range
Weather
East facing trees below Arapaho Lakes E/SE aspect 10,800ft Sky clear Wind-Strong out of the West Temps in the 20's
Snowpack
East facing trees below Arapaho Lakes - Pit location E/SE aspect Measured snow-pack depth @ 10,800ft was approx. 95cm. Was able to produce easy and very easy results on 2 separate compression tests. 1st test = CTV, 12cm down, that failed upon cutting the back of the column on what appeared to be buried surface facets from a few days ago.. Continuing on with the first test I was able to get a failure farther down the column near the ground where I observed the formation of an aproxx. 20cm of basal facets, 1mm in size. 2nd test produced almost the exact same results but the whole column collapsed with only 3 light taps from the wrist.
Avalanche
East facing tree glades below Arapaho Lakes. E/SE aspect 10,500ft Small R1/ D1 triggered near treeline by the 3rd skier in our group. Shallow wind slab aproxx. 12-15cm thick