Sawatch
AvalancheBrandon Levy · May 8, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
It was windy throughout the morning on the westside of Independence Pass. Broken cloud cover was moving fast overhead with sustained southwest winds. The temperature warmed from an overnight low of 31F at 12000' to nearly 40F by 11am when we were exiting the field. It never felt hot during the morning due to the wind and cloud cover.
Snowpack
The west and southwest facing slopes above SH82 held a 10cm surface crust this morning after a weak overnight freeze. The layering under this crust was punchy and one finger to four finger hardness on the hand hardness scale on the near-treeline slopes below 12000'. Above that elevation the layering below the crust was more resistant; however, not as hard as observed one week earlier when the near surface layers were generally knife hard; today, at 12500', the near surface layers and the surface crust were pencil to one finger hard. There is dust on the snow surface and another dust layer 20cm from the surface. The snowpack has softened and melted since the last observations in this area one week ago. The wind and the broken cloud cover was not enough to overcome the weak freeze below 12000'. Near-treeline slopes were punchy and ski penetration increased on egress both on east and west-facing slopes. The snow surface was moist on the east-facing slopes below treeline at 1030-1100 am. The snow above treeline stayed dry thorughout the morning on west and south-facing slopes.
Avalanche
Several D1 loose wet avalanches were observed on mulitple aspects many of which may have occured yesterday (5/7/2022) There were also several D1.5 loose wet avalanches that resulted from CDOT operations trundling snow on the Waterhole Grade that occured below the road above the Roaring Fork River.