Aspen

Avalanche

Jacob Dalbey · Jan 7, 2018 · Aspen

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Weather

Bluebird most of the day. Patchy cloud cover/fog.

Snowpack

Marble bowl proper. ESE facing. Approx 11,100'. Bottom of snowpack was 40-50cm large grained facets, fist hard transitioning to 4f hard near old snow/new snow interface, sugar, crumbled easily. Facets near the ground (approx bottom 5-10cm were pencil to knife hard) Storm snow approx 30-40cm, fist hard, cohesionless, no slab present. Appeared to bond relatively well with old snow. No structure within snowpack with quick hand pit test (ie mf crust, wind crust, etc). Hand pit test showed facets then storm snow and took a lot of effort to move storm snow off of old/new interface. Descending ski tracks did produce point releases from upper portions of the ridge ( ie steeper terrain/shallower snowpack). Point releases remained within storm snow (did not step down into facets), no propagation and ran roughly 100-200ft'.

Avalanche

North face of the "fridge" appeared to have slid mid storm. Debris covered with a few inchs of new snow. Ran approx 800'. Unable to determine crown size and propagation. WNW face of "the blob". Fairly substantial avalanche observed from a distance. R2 D3?