Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Feb 21, 2021 · Sawatch
Weather
Visibility was limited with obscured skies. Snowed S1 at times. Cold and blustery. Light wind loading near treeline, hard to tell above.
Snowpack
I dug on north below treeline (upper end of BTL) and on southeast near treeline. Both snowpacks have depth of about 110 cm. Recent snow is about 10 cm. The slab was 45 cm thick in both snowpits with slab progressively harder with depth. The slab was pencil hard towards the bottom of it. In both pits I also got hard propagating results but the failure layer was a little different. On the north slope the ECT failed 30 cm from the ground on faceted crystals at the top of the depth hoar layer. On the southeast-facing slope I got a failure on a thick fist-hard faceted layer under a 1 cm melt-freeze crust, 50 cm from the ground.---Winds were transporting snow near treeline into 10 inch thick slabs. They would crack underfoot in a small areas.
Avalanche
Recent avalanche in path east of Zion 6. Debris looked fairly fresh. I am guessing it ran during the strong winds last Friday. There were also a few small Wind Slab avalanches.