Observation: Summit

Location: Colorado

Date:
Observer:
Route & General Observations

Toured up Colorado @ 11am with the goal to get eyes on the thanksgiving crust/facet combo, try and find buried surface hoar, and investigate surface conditions to treeline.
Found great powder in the trees!!

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

Scattered clouds in the morning, increasing to overcast in the afternoon. Temps at the car were in the single digits, increasing to the teens in the afternoon @ 3000' - slight inversion
Calm to light winds from the NNW with trace snowfall in the afternoon, mostly graupel

Snow surface

Observed widespread 4-6mm surface hoar until ~2000' where it was more patchy, mostly limited to sheltered areas, and mixed in with near-surface facets (0.3-0.5mm)
Above ~2500' and in more exposed areas, wind effect was fairly widespread with breakable crust (5-10cm thick) and hard supportable slabs

Snowpack

Dug pits in two locations
Pit location 1: 2250' E aspect, snow depth 110cm
Pit location 2: 2900' E aspect, snow depth 97cm (variable depths probed at treeline, from 100cm-50cm between E and ESE aspects)
Overall found poor structure and good stability at the two pit locations
Pit profiles and test results below

Photos & Video
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