Aspen

A recent hard slab avalanche with skier tracks going through it from the past few days.

It was a sunny day and felt warm in the sun. There were calm winds with some short gusts.

In one isolated area with a wind slab about 2 ft thick, we observed cracking and collapsing about 15 ft out but did not trigger an avalanche even though we were on a 30+ degree slope. Wind slabs were inconsistent, stubborn, and isolated but we also avoided traveling directly on them on unsupported slopes steeper than around 35 degrees. On north through east-facing slopes above treeline the snowpack was very variable ranging from around 50cm to 110cm. The snowpack is generally just weak snow composed mostly of facets that are showing some signs of rounding in the bottom half of the snowpack and an upper snowpack that is quickly faceting and losing any cohesion. Stability tests showed no signs of propagation in those deeper layers.