Sawatch
AvalancheTommy Gram-Ahlene · Jan 20, 2024 · Sawatch
Weather
Broken ski condition with comfortable temps and a lite west wind.
Snowpack
Making observations along our tour we found widespread PS structure and hand cracking and collapsing throughout our tour. We found varying snow heights from 70 cm BTL to 100 cm NTL and 140-150cm in wind loaded areas. While touring off trail we had several large collapsing as well as saw shooting cracks well over 80' in distance away. Snow Pits revealed several persistent week layers with a pencil hard slab above them on a NE aspect NTL. Our pit had an HS of 95cm We had propagating ECT results on a layer in the mid pack and near the ground with moderate taps (ECTP11 @45cm & ECTP14 @15cm)
Avalanche
We saw a recent avalanche (within 48 hrs) on Mount Prospect on an East Aspect ATL. This avalanche appeared to be a hard slab that was naturally triggered small relative to its path large enough to injure or burry a person and seemed to break into old snow layers near the ground. HS-N-R2-D2-O