Aspen
SnowpackMatt Gettleman · Apr 23, 2013 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Weather was sunny with a few scattered clouds. Ridgeline was windy with gusts of 10 mph (approx) coming from the West, with slight wind loading onto eastern slopes. Temps were between 45 at 3pm and 25 at 6pm.
Snowpack
We dug a snowpit on the eastern aspect near the summit of Willie's peak with a slope angle of 23 degrees. Snow pack was approx 180cm deep with several significant layers. The top 2 in were fresh snow, with the dust layer directly beneath that and a hard crust underneath. approx 40 cm of well consolidated snow on top of larger facets at approx 130cm. below 130 was approx 40cm of large facets on an icy layer at approx 100cm. We attempted an isolated column compression test but could not get it to fail after 10 hits from the wrist, 10 from the elbow and 10 from the shoulder.