Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · May 13, 2019 · Sawatch
Weather
Clear skies in the morning becoming partly cloudy in the afternoon. Very warm except for ridgetop where the breeze kept temperatures feeling cooler.
Snowpack
Solid surface freeze overnight with supportable conditions and slide-for-life being the main hazard in the early morning. Surface crusts quickly began to melt as the sun hit the slope. Warming limited to the top 4 to 6 inches of underlying crusts supportable to skis. In rocky, steep areas the snowpack was less supportable and foot pen, is much deeper. Collapsing observed on easterly-facing slopes.
Avalanche
We observed numerous, mostly small, avalanches on east and southeast-facing slopes. A large proportion of these avalanches were small wet slabs running on a dust crust from late April. We remotely triggered one of these slabs at about 3 PM on an east-facing slope. Ski penetration was minimal at the time of the avalanche but whumpfing sounds were present to alert us of the unstable snow.---We also saw a Loose Wet avalanche run out of steep and rocky easterly-facing terrain. A lot of snow stuck to steep slopes and hanging snowfields from the last storm. These small snowfields and mushrooms of snow are easily releasing from rocky areas onto slopes below.---A few larger, widely propagating avalanches were observed on Green Mountain and into Grizzly Creek (listed under Aspen zone in a seperate ob).