Front Range

There was about 10 to 20cm of new snow. Moderate winds were actively moving snow from the west. If was clear and sunny.

On northwest-facing slopes near the treeline, I experienced active rumbling collapses that would shake trees from a distance. On this aspect, I got easy failures on the ground in Extended Column Tests. It is likely that an avalanche on these aspects would be small as the slab did not seem to be very connected but this is not a theory I would want to test. This aspect seems like it might be the first area to be troublesome for wet slab activity when it warms up. On northeast aspects, there is a lot of variation depending on wind loading. Under the new snow from this morning there is a layer of facets that is about 20cm deep that was reactive in column tests. This layer is one to watch, but the larger concern is a layer of facets sandwiched between two knife-hard layers about 70 to 90cm below the surface. Depending how hard the slab above this layer is, depends on how reactive the layer is. If you get a failure on this layer in steep terrain, you will trigger a large avalanche. On a crown profile on the Mines 2 avalanche, this layer didn't fail in an Extended Column Test, but a few yards away, where the snowpack was a little shallower, it did fail.