Sawatch

Avalanche

John Mackinnon ยท Feb 1, 2014

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Weather

Decreasing clouds on East Side. West side of the valley looked like it was in the clouds. Light westerly winds and occasional light blowing snow BTL. Sun made the day pleasant despite chilly temperatures.

Snowpack

On a SW aspect BTL: Observed 45 cm of storm snow from the past week. 5 cm of 1F snow from Monday's storm and 40 cm F-4F since Thursday. This week's storm snow is resting on a melt-freeze crust on sunny slopes BTL. Bottom 20 cm is DH showing some sintering. Repeatable CTs showing sudden drops on DH in multiple profiles. Avg HS of about 1 meter. Observed many rumbling collapses and shooting cracks on SE-S-SW-W aspects BTL. Some cracks propagated over 15 meters. A ski cut down a 35 degree north facing test slope (aka a tailings pile!!) produced no results.

Avalanche

We did not observe any avalanches where we traveled but did not get a good look into the alpine.