Sawatch
SnowpackDrew Gibson · Mar 23, 2024 · Sawatch
Weather
Partly to mostly cloudy. When the sun was out it was very hot. Air temperatures were near to above freezing at 11,000ft. There were brief passing snow flurries through the day but no notable accumulation. Winds were mostly from the west but speeds were sporadic.
Snowpack
An inch or so of new snow heated up on the more sun effected slopes but I didn't see any new sluffing. The old snow has a solid melt-freeze crust cap upwards of 20cm thick on southerly slopes. Slopes facing more northerly are harboring cold snow on the surface but lower elevation terrain is forming thin, breakable crusts where it is sun exposed. I went and looked at this reported slide, https://avalanche.state.co.us/observations/field-report/071d7a11-ea7c-458d-8bda-57dabb05c199 And as you would guess it is a perfect example of a NW facing slope that got overloaded during the last SE storm. Looking around NW aspects look loaded, but still look shallower than other aspects. While moving around just above treeline I caused a decent collapse on a NW facing slope. The snowpack in that location was about 1m deep, and had a firmer slab over weak snow sitting on the ground. Digging on an east aspect above treeline I managed to find a shallower area among a mostly 2m deep snowpack. Though the structure in this shallow area is rounding (gaining strength) the slab is still sitting over weak snow. Compression Test scores were on the low end of moderate, CT11. But propagation scores were much harder, ECTP21. This aligns with "stubborn" to trigger. On a NE-facing slope at 11,900ft, the snowpack was on average 1.8m deep, and the mid-pack was made up of mostly hard snow. There were no propagation results in the upper to middle snowpack in this location. I did not dig to the ground. (see the attached pit). The dust layer was found in both pits, and though there are small facets forming around it, they were non-reactive.