Aspen
AvalancheGreg Shaffran · Jan 9, 2017 · Aspen
Weather
Significant snowfall with increasing intensity all day, measured as 4cm/hr at 10:30am. Wind was blowing strong from the N, NE, before shifting towards the W around 2pm.
Snowpack
Did a hasty pit at 10,900' on a SE aspect above a small loose snow avalanche that was triggered by a hard turn above a steep aspect in McFarlane's Bowl. That loose snow avalanche ran approx. 20', and then propagated approx 60' wide and ran another 400'. It was hard to see because it was snowing so hard, but this avalanche ran over a slope that was skied yesterday afternoon. In the snow pit, the depth was 140cm with moist (wet?) grains at the bottom. We had easy failures within the storm snow in CT tests, and CTH at the Jan 2 interface buried at approx. 85cm. On both these interfaces our result were ECTN.
Avalanche
LS-AS/c-D1-R1 on SE aspect of McFarlane's at 10900' that ran 20' before propagating 60' wide and running another 400'. LS-AS/c-D1-R1 above the Harris Terrain trap (East facing at 11400'). At the same spot also noticed another slide that appeared to have one set of tracks heading into it, and one set coming out of the debris.