Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Dec 28, 2022 · Sawatch
Weather
Overcast with light snow showers until about 3 PM when snow picked up with short periods of snowfall rates of 1"/hr.
Snowpack
Below treeline the snowpack is mostly faceted. The snowpack has just enough structure to keep a skier from falling through the snowpack with a little speed. Near treeline the snowpack transitions from mostly faceted to up to a two foot thick slab. The slab is mostly from last week's wind event, and it's hard to pin down where this slab exists. Digging in one area I found this pencil hard slab and then a few hundred feet away, the snowpack is generally faceted without a slab. Near treeline there is 4 to 5 inches of new snow. I did not observe any cracking or collapsing in the storm snow. The new snow did little to change the overall snowpack stability. Visibility was limited so it was hard to tell if the wind was moving snow, but from some nearby ridgetop terrain that I could see, wind drifting looked minimal.
Avalanche
Limited visibility so hard to tell if anything happened.