Sawatch

Snowpack

John Mackinnon ยท Mar 22, 2014

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Weather

Obscured skies trending towards broken by the afternoon. Snow began around 1300 with rates up to 2cm/hr but began tapering by 1600. Winds were light out of the west at treeline with stronger gusts later in the day as the skies began clearing. Did not observe any significant amounts of blowing snow in areas we visited.

Snowpack

Little Ellen Hill Area: W-NW-N aspects up to TL. Found 3 cm of storm snow on top of the dust layer. Dust layer was easy to find in most areas on Little Ellen Hill. The dust layer and the recent storm snow are resting on a mix on wind crusts on wind scoured slopes, melt-freeze crusts on sunny slopes and a mix of facets and crusts in shadier areas. Pretty variable conditions out there. Skied slopes pushing 40* with no signs of instability. Earlier in the week, I had experienced small sluffing on near surface facets on 40* rolls but nothing was moving today.