Aspen

Strong gusts of wind all day and scattered cloud cover. No precipitation.

Above tree line the snowpack is thin and non-reactive. The winds did a number on the alpine in this area. We traveled on bare rock, bullet proof wind board and weak facets above 12,000 ft. Around 11,700, feet we experienced collapsing and cracking shooting out about 100 ft on a north-northeast facing slope. This was the only notable sign of instability we saw all day. Here, we found a 51 cm snowpack with a pencil to knife-hard (on the hand hardness scale) wind slab about 10 cm thick above faceted grains and depth hoar. An Extended Column Test showed propagation right below that wind slab on the first tap. About 500 ft lower on a north-facing slope, we found a similar snowpack with the wind slab a bit weaker. An Extended Column Test showed propagation deeper in the snowpack right above the bottom layer of depth hoar.