Grand Mesa

Avalanche

Rick Smith · Dec 16, 2015 · Grand Mesa

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Weather

Overcast with very light snow and an 11:30 temp. of -8.2c

Snowpack

At the CDOT stake at 11:00 am it looked like around 46 “ I went to the Skyway nordic parking lot and went about 100 yds. north to a spot that was south/west facing, with around a 20* slope. I dug a hasty pit which was 175cm deep (which surprised me). Before digging I checked (probed) about 7 places and they varied from 160cm-180cm. The upper layer was an easy “Fist” down to 140cm and from 140-120cm it turned to “4 Fingers”. From 120 down to 45cm it turned to a hard pencil/knife … Very hard, thick layer. (It was hard to dig through this layer.) From 45-20cm it turned to hard “1 Finger" and below that it went to “4 Fingers”. Pretty interesting to me, I didn’t think the HS had set up that big and especially that hard. Temps through the layers were -8.2c in the upper layer (160cm), -4.3 around the 90cm area and -2.5 around 60 cm. Outside temp. at 11:30 was -8.2 The winds were calm, overcast at Skyway during this time and it was snowing lightly from 9500’ down to around 8500’ (12:30p). Did not do a compression test but will try to do an ECT at Powderhorn later in the week.

Avalanche

None noted ..