Sawatch

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Feb 15, 2022 · Sawatch

Weather

Windy and cool near and above treeline. Mild and calm below treeline. Scattered clouds.

Snowpack

Windy day today with winds doing more damage to the snow surface then any effective loading. You can still find sheltered soft snow where Loose Dry avalanches are still possible but the slice of terrain where this is, is greatly diminished from last week. We were able to push a small loose avalanche down an east-facing below treeline slope but these avalanches now run out of snow to entrain as they hit surface crusts lower in the track.---Pole probing did not identify many areas where thick continuous slabs rest of buried weak layers. The slabs were thin and discontinuous in the terrain we traveled.---The overall snow depth in this area is about 150 cm on near treeline easterly slopes with about a meter of total snow depth below treeline. Some northerly above treeline slopes are stripped back to rock such as the northeast face of Homestake Peak.