2008-2009 Colorado Snowpack Observations

[montanaskier]

Montanaskier is from Bama....Roll Tide brother

[jon turner]

Skied Gold Hill today, just north of Fremont Pass. I dug a pit on a W-NW aspect in an opening just below treeline, maybe 20-25 degree slope angle. Snowpack was about 4 feet deep and appears to be consolidating nicely in the recent warm weather. The snow had a nice gradient from soft to firm from the surface to base with no obvious weak layers. However, the 2-3 inch sugar layer is still present right at the ground surface. Doing a compression test, the whole column shifted only from being isolated from the rest of the pit. It shifted on the sugar layer. There was no other movement, except for about 10 inches from the top of the column on the 5th tap from the elbow. This looked to mostly be new snow that had not yet completely bonded to the rest of the snowpack.

The sugar layer sketches me out. After the compression test I started scooping sugar snow out from under the wall of the pit trying to see if I could get it all to collapse, and the whole snow pack stayed well supported after I pretty much dug a cave out of the sugar snow. It seems this sugar and the snow above it is staying reasonably supported but it is not really stable and has a significant potential to slide eventually albeit randomly. Pretty scary and hard to predict. Hopefully it will eventually consolidate, but it looks like it will take awhile. I imagine N and E faces the sugar layer is even more prevalent and will take even longer to work itself out.

[FiveLarge]

^^^^ thanks for the update.

where you dug, sounds like the pack is bridging fairly well - but as you essentially note, if it's gonna go, it's gonna be the whole thing. Find that trigger point around a rock or bush where the pack isn't bridged above the basal facets and....

[powder_prophet]

Went up Buckeye Gulch yesterday, and found fantastic snow on E aspect!! 8-10 inches of blower on top of a soft base = really good skiing!!!! No signs of instability were observed, nor did I see any signs of natural slides on the steeper lines off Buckeye Peak.

[FiveLarge]

Went up Buckeye Gulch yesterday, and found fantastic snow on E aspect!! 8-10 inches of blower on top of a soft base = really good skiing!!!! No signs of instability were observed, nor did I see any signs of natural slides on the steeper lines off Buckeye Peak.

thanks for the obs. is there a TH w/parking right off 91?

[pechelman]

Skied Gold Hill today, just north of Fremont Pass. I dug a pit on a W-NW aspect in an opening just below treeline, maybe 20-25 degree slope angle. Snowpack was about 4 feet deep and appears to be consolidating nicely in the recent warm weather. The snow had a nice gradient from soft to firm from the surface to base with no obvious weak layers. However, the 2-3 inch sugar layer is still present right at the ground surface. Doing a compression test, the whole column shifted only from being isolated from the rest of the pit. It shifted on the sugar layer. There was no other movement, except for about 10 inches from the top of the column on the 5th tap from the elbow. This looked to mostly be new snow that had not yet completely bonded to the rest of the snowpack.

The sugar layer sketches me out. After the compression test I started scooping sugar snow out from under the wall of the pit trying to see if I could get it all to collapse, and the whole snow pack stayed well supported after I pretty much dug a cave out of the sugar snow. It seems this sugar and the snow above it is staying reasonably supported but it is not really stable and has a significant potential to slide eventually albeit randomly. Pretty scary and hard to predict. Hopefully it will eventually consolidate, but it looks like it will take awhile. I imagine N and E faces the sugar layer is even more prevalent and will take even longer to work itself out.

i was up there about 5 days before this and this same day,however ona predominantly NE facing slope near and above TL of 22-25* near the bottom and 26-28* near the top.

dug a pit on the earlier date, to find pretty much exactly what you found. To elaborate, the snow was well consolidated, and i had lots of trouble finding weak layers in the upper section of the pack. I was expecting to find a surface hoar layer, from what i observed about another 5 days before this trip, but it was either destroyed by high winds of really hard to find. Additionally, my friend and I felt that there was little energy in this consolidation as our compression and shears gave Q2s as well as from obs on how if failed and how it felt when poking\prodding\digging\isolating\etc. We also performed an ECT and PST without any resulting prorogation of the failure. It was the most amorphous Ive ever seen snow here and it was strange. Skied off the ridge of Gold hill, back down to the gulch, measured around 26-28*, and as expected, nothing moved. Also worth mentioning is that when our party of 3 gained the ridge, we all grouped together in an area appx ~10sqft and caused a whoompf as we got within this sized area.

On the same day we were there, I didnt dig a pit due to time and wind, but now wish i did. Definitely going to hit it up next time.
We traveled a bit higher than everyone else, again to the ridge, knowing the terrain and slope angles well.
People were scared of the cornice im guessing, which in places was small to non-existent, and large enough to bury a person in others.
A very firm windslab had developed over the last time we were there.
Id only be guessing at how thick it was, as it was impenetrable with my ski pole. Upon descending in an area free any significant cornices (like 4" overhang), i skied gently to the edge bouncing a tad on my downhill ski. When I got to the edge, the new snow (1-3") ontop of the windslab fractured locally around my ski, and produced no other movement. The bond here between this new snow and this slab is very poor. Skiing on down this slope, nothing else moved. Be aware and wary of this wind slab near and above treeline in this area should you venture on to steeper terrain closer to Fletcher\Clinton\Atlantic\Pacific\Quandry\etc in this area.

[pechelman]

thanks for the obs. is there a TH w/parking right off 91?

yes
just head down 4 maybe 5mi and its on your left

theres also another smaller one at clinton gulch? just a bit past this main\larger parking lot at mayflower gulch.

[powder_prophet]

yes
just head down 4 maybe 5mi and its on your left

theres also another smaller one at clinton gulch? just a bit past this main\larger parking lot at mayflower gulch.

i think he was asking about a TH to get into Buckeye. But yes, for Gold Hill, there are the two you mention.

thanks for the obs. is there a TH w/parking right off 91?

yeah, there is a small, inconspicuous TH/parking just east of the two archways. Its the 10th Mtn TH to get to the Sangre hut.


I made it up to Gold Hill after work to get some afternoon pow. Found much the same conditions reported earlier in the week: a soft yet consolidated upper layer with facets at the ground. Actually much more stable then expected. I did some hard ski cuts on top of tailings piles that were 38-40 degrees and could not get anything to even sluff, let alone slab off!

Back to Buckeye in the morning. That E aspect was too good not to go back...

[pechelman]

not sure how i misunderstood that

thanks for the correction and info!

[powder_prophet]

Went up Buckeye this morning. We found 20-24 inches of 2-3% blower. Underneath was a well-consolidated mid-pack for around 18 inches, then 5-6 inches of basal facets. Compression tests were positive; very low-energy shears were happening on the new/old-snow interface, around CT20. While skiing, we saw no signs of instability, no cracking or collapsing, and no natural activity. Skied a 30-32 degree pitch, and did not even experience sluffing. Only massive face-fulls of airy pow!!!!!

[jon turner]

Went up Buckeye this morning. We found 20-24 inches of 2-3% blower. Underneath was a well-consolidated mid-pack for around 18 inches, then 5-6 inches of basal facets. Compression tests were positive; very low-energy shears were happening on the new/old-snow interface, around CT20. While skiing, we saw no signs of instability, no cracking or collapsing, and no natural activity. Skied a 30-32 degree pitch, and did not even experience sluffing. Only massive face-fulls of airy pow!!!!!

It was good in Cal Gulch this afternoon as well. Similar conditions, just a little less snow, which would be expected.

[montanaskier]

sounds like Vail Pass got about 3 or 4 feet from the Tuesday/Wed system. Check out NPGs blog.

[smitchell333]

^^^
Similar experience to NPG yesterday. Vail Pass/Uneva side.

3+ feet of new snow up there. Inverted layering in the new snow compounded by surface hoar on crusty layer underlayed with depth hoar. I slogged laboriously up towards Uneva on treed W/SW/S slopes for 3 hours - ski tips constantly catching under the heavier layer in the middle of the 3' and/or breaking into the layers underneath the new.

Had to bail near treeline as I started getting whoomphing as the terrain started to get steeper than 20-25 deg, not cool. I'm quite certain that a 35-40 deg slope would have slid, probably first in the 3' and then quite possibly triggering to the ground. Bailed out and back down.

Skiing down was terrible as ski tips kept getting dragged under the heavier stuff. Went to the uptrack and rode straight back down.

[pappag]

^^^
Similar experience to NPG yesterday. Vail Pass/Uneva side.

3+ feet of new snow up there. Inverted layering in the new snow compounded by surface hoar on crusty layer underlayed with depth hoar. I slogged laboriously up towards Uneva on treed W/SW/S slopes for 3 hours - ski tips constantly catching under the heavier layer in the middle of the 3' and/or breaking into the layers underneath the new.

Had to bail near treeline as I started getting whoomphing as the terrain started to get steeper than 20-25 deg, not cool. I'm quite certain that a 35-40 deg slope would have slid, probably first in the 3' and then quite possibly triggering to the ground. Bailed out and back down.

Skiing down was terrible as ski tips kept getting dragged under the heavier stuff. Went to the uptrack and rode straight back down.

So that was you on the Uneva side? We saw someone near the base of the peak, but didn't see any ski tracks anywhere at all on that side of the pass and wondered what had happened. Thanks for the insight.






As for our experiences, all 3+ feet of new snow was super reactive yesterday. On a 30-35 degree NE slope, the new snow didn't pass a Rutschblock 2 while the 4+ feet of hard slab underneath passed an RB7. As predicted, the new snow collapsed twice on the initial rollover (>40 degrees) in the area between Shrine Mountain and Black Lake no. 2 just below 11,000 feet on a NE slope. We also saw two remote avalanches set off by our presence. One (20-25 degrees, NE slope, 10800') was about 50 feet below us and another (~40 degrees, NE slope, 11000') was also 50 feet away. The 2nd was around 50-100' wide and ran 150-200'. The two we set up ran 100-150' and were about 50-100' wide.

Below is the first one that was set off after a member in our party ski cut across:









Some pic pictures:








Shovel length here = new snow:





Adam performing the Rutschblock test:








This shows how deep the snow was:











Recap of the day here:

http://www.52weeksindenver.com/2009/...vail-pass.html

[smitchell333]

So that was you on the Uneva side? We saw someone near the base of the peak, but didn't see any ski tracks anywhere at all on that side of the pass and wondered what had happened. Thanks for the insight.

I was approaching via the treed drainage S and E of this pic. The guys in this pic were a couple of snowshoers that I shared trailbreaking with for the 1st 3/4 mile or so.

[montanaskier]

that is a ton of new snow...unreal.

[montanaskier]

Wife and some friends did some digging outside of Beaver Creek on Sun. Dug on a westerly aspect at about 11,200. Pack was roughly 5 feet deep. Hard slab right below the foot of newer. Pretty well consolidated pack in this pit. Most troubling was the basal facets...pure sugar garbage on the ground. Deep slab instabilities are a concern. I bet some stuff goes BIG before the year is up. RB5 test score

[MakersTeleMark]

Anyone know anymore about this?:

The only report of avalanche activity came in from the East Vail area. A skier triggered slide that ran close to 1000' on a west, northwest aspect at treeline. The fracture line was just over three feet deep.

[montanaskier]

sounds like a HUGE slide near Eiseman.....all mags safe?

[Fenris]

Snook told us about it yesterday, which was a little spooky for some of the guys on patrol because they had skied that line a couple days before. He did say that everyone was fine though.

[highflyingpilot]

Dug a pit on a E-NE aspect at roughly 10,500 ft. on a 33-34 degree slope near Brainard Lake (Ward, CO). Snow was well consolidated and withstood 7 from the shoulder before failing in a shovel test. It was a clean fracture about 10" down. After 12 taps from the shoulder, another layer broke off about 2.5ft down from the surface. The weak layers were both pretty obvious from poking the snowpack, but as a whole it was apparent that the snowpack was pretty solid. We skied the slope without incident and as we were starting to leave a few flakes began coming down (signs of things to come? )

[jon turner]

Dug a pit up at Berthoud today on a windloaded NE facing slope behind Postage Stamp (a line I've heard called Corner Pocket?). The snowpack was 180cm from surface to ground. Only significant weak layer was a crust about a foot above the ground .5-1" thick. The new wet snow was already settled and compacted, looked to be bonding well to the old snow. There are still some facets directly on the ground, but they looked to be bonding better than in other places I've seen and were not reactive in the shovel compression test. Shovel compression test result was hard (CH), failing at the crust and one other shear about 2.5 - 3 feet from the ground on the 1st tap from the shoulder. Nothing moved at all with wrist and elbow taps. We performed a ski cut on the NE slope (maybe 30-35 degrees - should've measured it, but didn't) with no obvious signs of instability, even sloughing was minimal. New snow on this line was windloaded and knee to crotch deep. If it had been lighter, it would've been endless faceshots all the way down. Everything stayed put, and the run was a blast.

[goldenboy]

Fairly entertaining (by 14ers.com standards) thread regarding the recent avalanche on Torrey's E face. http://www.14ers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17737


edit: Dude's TR is even better, including photos of the powder cloud and debris he created: http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripre...&cpgm=tripmain

[montanaskier]

Frank, I am sure that with B out, that dude could take her spot. Maybe you, him, and an E face of Capital line?

[goldenboy]

Frank, I am sure that with B out, that dude could take her spot. Maybe you, him, and an E face of Capital line?

Dude's got mad skillz, yo. Good idea.