Sawatch

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · May 22, 2024 · Sawatch

Weather

Clear skies and cold temperatures to start the day (in the teens). Temperatures warmed with the strong May sun but still stayed cool above treeline with relatively cold air and consistent winds.

Snowpack

2 to 4 cm of new snow sits on top of knife-hard melt-freeze crust on all aspects that I traveled on today. Below this thick crust is a layer of polycrystals that is moist and softer than surrounding layers. Overall the snowpack is drying out and cooling from our previous warm spell. Previously wet layers are now moist and the snowpack has drained water, instead of retaining water in the upper snowpack, since a few days ago. Winds during our last storm drifted new snow and this drifting continued today. On slopes steeper than about 40 degrees, with slabs of drifted snow, I was able to get small shooting cracks and trigger one very small avalanche. The drifted slab doesn't seem to bonding well to the slick crust underneath, but it seems to be only an issue in very steep, extreme, crossloaded terrain.