Sawatch

Snowpack

Jeremy Primmer · Jan 20, 2022 · Sawatch

Weather

Light breeze, no loading observed

Snowpack

I found a very supportable snowpack with 2" of light, fresh snow. I did not observe any signs of instability. On Southerlies, there was a supportive melt-freeze crust under the recent snow. On wind-loaded northeast-facing slopes near the treeline, I found a very variable snowpack. I dug two pits 20’ apart and found a snow height of 84cm and 177cm. In the shallower snowpack, the slight density changes in the holiday storm slab are becoming more pronounced as the slab facets. There was only a thin layer of depth hoar at the bottom 12cm of the snowpack, and I did not get any propagating results with an ECT. With a PST on the depth hoar, I did not get propagation until 80/100cm. In the deeper snowpit, there was a thicker layer of soft facets, but it was capped by a thick pencil hard windslab. In a deep tap test, it took hard force to get any of the facets to fail, and even then, it was Q3. The facets and the depth hoar in the deeper pit have started making small chains.