Sawatch
SnowpackBo Torrey · Dec 18, 2020 · Sawatch
Weather
S1 to broken skies and occasional sunshine. Light winds.
Snowpack
Snow depth was 50-70cm in most areas near treeline on northwest through east aspects. Good news and bad news...the good news is the soft powder from last weeks storm has settled and provides a supportable snowpack in many areas. The bad news is that that settled supportable snow created a cohesive slab across many slopes. We found 4-6" of new snow and it was enough new snow, combined with wind to make the snowpack unstable and sensitive to our body weight. We had several large collapses that traveled onto adjacent slope and produced cracks. We chose to avoid avalanche terrain and traveled on low angle slopes. On northeast and east facing slopes we dug down to investigate the snowpack structure where the large collapses occurred and found a 40-45cm slab fist to 4-finger hard over 15-20cm of fist hard faceted snow. Stability tests produced propagation in all of our pits on northeast and east facing slopes near treeline. (ECTP 11, ECTP6, ECTP 7) All breaking on old snow 40-50cm below the surface.