Sawatch
AvalancheColin Mitchell · May 22, 2016 · Aspen
Weather
Warm, with sunny skies, and moderate to strong winds at pass level and above.
Snowpack
Winds were keeping the snow surface cold today. Even S and SW aspects above 12,000' held a solid crust into the afternoon hours. Ski pen 1-2 cms, 0 on more northerly aspects. Moving down onto lower elevations, the crust was deteriorating by 2:30 pm, and snow was punchy with a ski pen around 15 cms (snow depth was no more than 30 cms). A lot of melting has occurred on the west-facing slopes in the past 4 days, and in many areas bare ground is showing. Most of the road cuts along the grade are now bare. The waterholes are still holding 20-30 cms in the tracks, probably double that in the wind-loaded start zones. I anticipate these paths to be largely melted out by opening day. The east-facing paths of West Roaring Fork are holding more snow, but showing signs of melting out as well, with large circles of bare ground around trees and in likely thin areas, like convex rolls, and around rock outcroppings.
Avalanche
Several LW slides had released in the steep terrain in the waterholes and in West Roaring Fork. All looked to have run yesterday, with the exception of a small slide that ran this afternoon around 3pm. This one came out of Waterhole #2 and put a couple of cubic meters of debris on the road, crossing about half of the downhill lane.