Sawatch

Snowpack

Jeremy Primmer Dylan Craaybeek · Nov 29, 2021 · Sawatch

Weather

Light NW winds and temps were very warm, above freezing the entire time we were out

Snowpack

We found that the wind slabs from the previous storms are breaking down. In many locations, we could not find the slab structure. Where we could find slabs, they were noticeably less stiff than last week. We dug a pit on a wind-loaded east-facing slope near treeline and found 70cm of snow with fist hard facets sitting on top of a thin one-finger hard wind slab that is faceting. Under that, there were some 4 to 1 finger hard well bonded facets sitting on fist hard advanced facets and hallow cups at the bottom of the snowpack. We did two extended column tests and got ECTN-19 and ECTP-26 that both failed just above the above advanced facets at the bottom of the snowpack from October. There was 1 cm surface hoar on the snow surface on most slopes throughout our tour. We toured around the corner and up the basin to the east of Mt Arkansas. There we found a much shallower snowpack.