Sawatch

Snowpack

Zachary Sauer · Jan 21, 2024 · Sawatch

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Weather

Blowing snow on Monarch Ridge, loading NW terrain. Temps in the low30's and mid20's, and gusts up to 24 mph. Mostly Cloudy, with some sun around 3pm.

Snowpack

We found a snowpack that was 167cm deep on a NE Aspect around 11,400ft, moving from F to 4f at 153cm to 111cm. There was then a pencil hard layer from 111cm to 55cm, on top of 60cm of F hard facets. In a ECT, we saw a minor crack that did not propagate at ECTN 7 @153 cm. Continuing the test, we got a prorogating crack at ECTP 17, on a small melt/freeze layer at 111cm. Finally, we had the entire snowpack collapse at ECTP 20 on the facet layer around 60cm.