Sawatch

Snowpack

Near the summit of Independence Pass and the area of Mountain Boy drainage that we traveled in, snowpack depths averaged 80 cm. 30cm of this was settled storm snow from the April 14th storm. This storm snow was well bonded to the rough and dirty old snow surface below it. Despite the mild temperatures, broken skies and a light northwest wind kept the moist snow confined to the upper 5-10 cm of the snowpack above treeline today. Still found some decomposing grains below this moist snow layer in the upper snowpack. We have not returned to full corn snow conditions since that April 14th storm at these higher elevations. Moist snow surface has resulted in some rollers on most aspects above treeline, but no new wet snow avalanches were noted in this area since Saturday.