Sawatch
AvalancheBrandon Levy · May 5, 2021 · Aspen
Weather
Broken cloud cover and periods of overcast with very light snow. When the sun did poke through the clouds it was warm and intense. Relatively gusty northwest winds increased throughout the morning and were visibly moving the recent snow to lee aspects.
Snowpack
There is 12cms of recent storm snow above the dusty crust / dust layer. Localized cracking around skis occurred as I ascended to about 12200' when it stopped and the snow was generally supportable to skis. I could shove my pole to the ground until about 11500'. Boot penetration was 25cms at 12500' near the start zone elevation. I dug and probed in a relatively deep, flatter location adjacent to the areas that have previously avalanched earlier in the winter. The snow depth was 185cms and consisted of the storm snow above a thin 6cms melt-freeze dusty crust. Below the crust was variable resistance of moist snow and frozen ice lenses and percolation columns ranging from four finger to ice hardness. At around 30cms from the ground the rounded depth hoar was four finger hard and moist to wet.
Avalanche
Four small somewhat gouging and dirty loose wet avalanches occurred yesterday (4/4/2021) afternoon below Waterhole Grade as the snowcat was trundling snow over the bank. The largest slide pulled a small slab midway in the track.