We decided to get out to check the major storm totals (12 inches…:) ) from this weekend… Although the storm totals were only a quarter of the lowest predictions, the riding was still pretty great.

We did not notice any major red flags. We were expecting some major drifting and really didn’t see much in the way of drifting (caveat, we stayed in relatively protected areas away from the front range). We didn’t hear any wumpfhs or see any cracking and we didn’t observe any recent avalanches, however like I said, we really didn’t get into terrain that would have produced avalanches.

We dug a pit on a 25 degree WSW facing slope at around 8400 feet. There was about 12 inches of new right-side-up snow from the weekend with light snow on top. The new snow sat on top of about 12 inches of snow from the previous week with an ice crust down about 24 inches. The total snowpack in this pit was about 65 inches with a layer of 12 inches of faceted snow from November at the ground level.

Pit tests showed multiple compression test failures in the new snow but nothing I was too concerned about. We got a slightly more significant failure at 21 taps and the new/old snow interface down 12-14 inches. Then a total column failure at 25-27 taps in the faceted layer near the bottom of the column.

The Extended Column Test did not produce any propagation failures. We did get a non-propagating failure at the new-old snow interface (14 inches down) at 17 taps. At 30 taps we finally got a failure just under the ice crust about 24 inches down. I was wailing on the column so I was not surprised that it finally failed.

Overall the snowpack is looking better than I expected after the last two weeks of storms. However, with that much new loading, I still don’t trust any big slopes over 30 degrees.