Front Range

10cm of new snow and very active wind transport from the northwest.

Below treeline there is about 80 to 100cm of snow. This snow was easy to punch my pole through. The top quarter of the snowpack was new snow and below that was facets. There was no reaction in the new snow. Towards the top of the near-treeline elevation band, I started to see collapses on wind-drifted features. This became more active as I climbed above treeline, and I got one very large collapse. When I looked at the crack, there was an initial failure in the snow down about 30cm, followed by a deeper step into the facets buried on MLK weekend. On the southeast and east aspects, there was a thin crust with facets above and below, which caused the higher collapse. It seems likely that human-triggered avalanches will occur this weekend and potentially remotely.