Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Apr 1, 2018 · Sawatch
Weather
Winds were gusty at all elevations in the morning subsiding by noon. Strong southerly winds picked up in the afternoon. Cloud cover decrease throughout the day with mostly sunny skies by days end.
Snowpack
Isothermic unsupportable snowpack below treeline. As we exited in late afternoon crusts were forming on shady slopes with decreasing cloud cover.--- We traveled on mostly easterly slopes near and above treeeline and found a snowpack that was supportable to skis with the top few inches becoming moist up to 12,500 ft. As the sun moved around in the afternoon crusts quickly formed.--- No obvious signs of instability were observed today. No sign of reactive wind slabs. Areas of unreactive hard slabs directly below ridgetop.---The top 2 inch wind-packed crust on shadier slopes sits over a very soft snow layer and cracks easy underskis. Could be an issue with a large load.---We did not dig down to assess any of the more deeply buried weak layers.
Avalanche
Several older Persistent Slab avalanches were observed. They were all D2 in size and on north and east-northeast slopes. Hard to tell how old these were. They may have released around the March 23rd storm. A few small more recent Wind Slab avalanches were also observed.