Sawatch
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Feb 17, 2022 · Sawatch
Weather
Winds were light northerly in the morning with not much drifting. By 10 AM, it seemed the winds veered to northwesterly and increased in speed. Effective wind loading onto easterly slopes. Driving back to Leadville, there was significant drifting noted around Mt Massive onto southerly slopes.
Snowpack
With only 2 inches of new snow, avalanche conditions are much the same as they have been in sheltered areas and below treeline. The main change today was wind drifted snow onto east and southerly slopes. It looked like effective loading across and down the slope and not just ridgetop loading. We observed a very small natural avalanche at about 11 AM on an above treeline east-facing slope. The crown was not more then a few inches thick. Traveling above treeline, we got collapses on small easterly terrain features. The weak layer that was collapsing was faceted snow 20 to 30 cm from the surface. There are quite a few slab/facet sandwiches in the upper 30 cm of the snowpack.