Observation: Summit

Location: Colorado

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Ascended East aspect to 3700′

Red Flags
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Observer Comments

None observed

Weather & Snow Characteristics
Please provide details to help us determine the weather and snowpack during the time this observation took place.
Weather

Clear skies, temps in the teens F, 5-10 mph North winds near ridge top

Snow surface

Surface hoar 3-5mm found to 3000'
Road level to 1500' 1cm of near surface facets on crust on the ground
Loose snow gradually increasing as we ascended to 20cm just below 2700'. Snow felt more wind affected above 2500'.
Above 3000' wind packed snow was faceting on the surface.

Snowpack

Can easily feel crust under 20cm of snow, at 2400 a crust sandwich was first noted with the thinner upper crust disappeared around 2700'. Between these crusts were 4F hard snow with a stout supportable crust that was ~30cm deep.

Dug several pits at 3650'-
ESE aspect just below the ridge. I dug in a shallow spot 55cm deep and found a 10cm layer of 2mm facets on the ground under a 4cm crust. Tests failed below the crust, ECTP21, CT13. The slab consisted of 40cm of pencil hard rounds/windpacked snow with a rime crust on top. The slab felt like concrete and needed a saw to isolate columns. My partner dug 25' away in a deeper spot, ~80cm and had propagation with strong force breaking unevenly above and below this same 4cm rain/MF crust on smaller faceting rounds (~0.5mm). In this pit the crust layer was mid-pack with dry rounded grains starting to facet below the crust - possibly older snow from late Oct or early Nov, but hard to say due to SNOTEL's down mid Oct through mid Nov. We suspect the crust layer was from Nov.7-9 when temps were well above freezing at 3800'.

Photos & Video
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