Sawatch

Snowpack

Ben Pritchett · Mar 10, 2021 · Sawatch

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Weather

Cool day with snow showers and light gusting moderate winds. Overnight winds drifted 6" of storm snow into fresh drifts up to 2' deep.

Snowpack

The snowpack in Taylor Park is very weak. Below the 6" of storm snow, we found a double-stack of melt-freeze crusts on a still dry and very weak Depth Hoar base. Difficult snowmobile travel with no slab for support. The crusts were essentially not supportive to sleds, although small areas of stiff snow would propel our sleds out of their trenches to the snow surface.