Sawatch

Snowpack

Ian Hoyer Becs Hodgetts ยท Jan 7, 2016

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Weather

Snowing lightly. Just windy enough to blow around the couple inches of new snow. Surprisingly chilly.

Snowpack

HS up to 140 cm, typically ~100cm on shady aspects. Sun crusts up to 5 cm on sunny slopes (SE-E). Much of the alpine is scoured, HS ~30cm. New snow only drifted up to 6 inches deep, but it cracked easily on rollovers. Slabs up to 1 finger hardness near treeline, but no propagation in snowpack tests on E or N aspects. Worrisome structure is widespread, but seems to be accommodated the Christmas week loading event.