Quick report
- Slope Angle
- 38°
Avalanche
- Slab Width
- 12 m
- Weak Layer
- New Snow
- Trigger Type
- Snowboarder
- Vertical Fall
- 30 m
- Avalanche Type
- Soft Slab
- Slab Thickness
- 30 cm
- Start Zone Aspect
- Northeast
- Avalanche Problem
- New Snow
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2743 m
The snow was deep and light today at the Grove. The parking lot only had about 4 inches but the closer you got the Front Range the deeper it got. We found nearly 2 feet where we rode today and it was just starting to get heavy when we left at 2:30.
There was a lot of new snow instabilities and we had many soft slabs rip out on us on north through east facing slopes greater than 35 degrees. Most of the slabs only involved the top 6-12 inches. We stayed on slopes that were mellower and only had short steep sections so none of the slides ran more than 100 vertical. These pictures are a couple example of the slabs we saw.
We also found evidence of some significant natural storm slabs around 100 feet wide on North facing slopes. The slabs ran during the storm and traveled around 600 vertical feet on a steep north facing slope. There was very little evidence of wind during the storm and we did not have any issue with wind slabs everywhere we rode. While passing the lake at about 2:30 there were several wet slides coming off of the cliffs around the lake.