Sawatch

Avalanche

Kevin Nikolaides · Mar 19, 2022 · Sawatch

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Weather

Sunny, fairly warm, calm to light breeze, skies hazy/overcast by 3pm.

Snowpack

Dug on a SE aspect below clover mountain at 12,500'. Snow depth approx 3.5m. 10cm F hard new/wind drifted snow on top of a 57cm P hard slab. Below slab was a very, very hard K+ crust (struggled to even probe through it). ECT produced no results but prying behind the slab with a shovel did pop it off just above this hard crust. Below tree line there was ~20cm of new snow on top of a pretty supportive base. South aspects and very sun exposed areas had a small surface crust but the snow was not getting terribly wet by the time we skied out (3pm)

Avalanche

got a test slope to fracture (see photo). N aspect just east of boss lake, obvious wind loading.