Sawatch
AvalancheColin Mitchell · May 8, 2017 · Aspen
Weather
Sunny skies in the morning. Clouds slowly built until we reached overcast by noon. Quite warm. Light but gusty SW winds.
Snowpack
Recent snows have consolidated down to a couple of inches of wet corn snow on top of April's thick crust. Little snow remains above the grade on the west side, with only a few small patches left after waterhole #3. #3 and #2 are basically melted out and no longer pose a significant threat to the highway or operators. #1 is still holding snow, and so is the steep slope between #1 and #2. The biggest threat right now is rain saturating the thin snowpack and releasing full-depth loose slides, or getting what is left of last week's snow moving on the crust. A lot of rollerballs were visible below rock outcroppings on all aspects. A few tiny D1 loose slides came down on northerly aspects on Independence Mountain, and some larger ones on southerly aspects on Geissler Mountain. These probably occurred Friday or Saturday.
Avalanche
Lots of rollerballs, but only a few areas produced loose slides.