Sawatch
AvalancheJohn Mackinnon ยท Mar 28, 2014
Weather
Morning started out with OVC skies, high thin clouds and light orographic snow (S-1). Winds remained light and westerly in the morning. Skies cleared to BKN as the day went on with intermittent snow (up to S1). Wind picked up from the west in the afternoon with light blowing snow observed at ridge-tops. I did not measure an airtemp, but temps felt mild with strong "greenhousing" from high thin clouds.
Snowpack
Found 25 cm of recent storm snow on south and east aspects near TL. Snow was resting on a MFcr on the southerly aspects. On the east aspects, recent storm snow was resting on a dust layer at 25cm; there was also another dust layer down 30 cm. All recent storm snow was F hard and trended to 4F for the last ~5 cm. South aspects were transitioning into "hot powder" by 1400, but east aspects stayed dry through the day. We skied slopes up to 35*; we did not observe any storm slab instabilities in the terrain we visited.
Avalanche
Observed 8 small (D1) Loose Dry avalanches on an East aspect above treeline. They looked fairly recent~24 hours old.