Sawatch
SnowpackAndrea Tupy · Feb 21, 2021 · Sawatch
Weather
The day was partly cloudy with crisp, moderate westerly winds that made it feel colder than it was. The temperature was in the low teens in the morning and warming up to 17F by 1pm. The winds were gusty below treeline and high along ridgetops but snow transport was limited due to lack of product left to move. The trees had lost most of their snow load from the previous multiple days of high winds and there were obvious signs of snow transport on the snow surface: pine needle litter and soft sastrugi.
Snowpack
Below treeline on northeast and southeast aspects the snowpack was supportive to skis. An unsupportive 2cm suncrust has formed on the surface of southerly aspects where the tree canopy is less than 50% dense but in other areas the surface was soft. I experienced no signs of instability while touring. Pits dug on the northeast and southeast aspects revealed a supportive midpack of rounding facets. Both pits had a base layer 35-45cm deep of large unsupportive facets that failed on CT 22 and 23, respectively, and when that weak and faceted layer was tested with a PST results were 31/100 Arr and 27/100 SF. A result of ECTx was determined at both pits.