Colorado Mountain

We toured up Colorado to search for buried surface hoar and check on facets near the ground. We were surprised to find 4" of new snow. The Summit Creek weather station is having a hard time picking up the new snow. There was east wind blowing off of Butch peak especially in the morning so there are some fresh wind slabs in the upper elevations. It did feel quite warm through the day and tomorrow is forecast to be sunny so there may be a sun crust and some wet loose activity in the future. We found the buried surface hoar about 8" down in our snowpit, which is described in the snowpack section. This layer is still concerning regardless of test results because it produced an avalanche on Tenderfoot a few weeks ago so we know it exists in places and is capable of failure. Snow quality today was great. It was getting heavy in the lower elevations as our day came to an end. 

There was a surprising 4" of new snow at the road level that was sitting on a 1" thick mostly supportable temperature/heat crust. Below that was a few inches of facets and below that was a thick crust that contained the melted and frozen surface hoar. Several hand pits on the way up caused the facets below the heat crust to fail upon isolation. There isn't a slab on top of this crust yet so not a concern right now. At 2,700' we dug a snowpit and did not get any concerning results in our stability tests. (CT5 - 3" down below the heat crust and ECTX). The buried surface hoar was intact about 8" below the surface, but did not react in the tests. The facets near the ground continue to gain strength, which is a good sign and we will keep monitoring their progress. Check out the snopilot image for grain details.