Sawatch

Snowpack

Ian Hoyer ยท Apr 15, 2016

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Weather

Overcast skies and temperatures right around freezing. A few groupel showers throughout the morning and early afternoon. Just a little bit of wind, nothing really substantial or sustained. Some rumbling thunder chased me off the ridgeline right around noon. Snow intensity increased to S1 and then switched to a rain/snow mix as I drove off the pass.

Snowpack

Found a 10-15 cm surface crusts on all aspects near treeline. On most slopes this is sitting over moist snow to the ground. The exception to this was a northwest facing slope near treeline that only had moist snow for the top 15 cm, and below that was completely dry. Lots of bare ground is exposed on south through west facing slopes at all elevations, especially steeper or rocker slopes. The surface crust had softened a bit on sunny slopes, but was still well intact around noon.