Sawatch
SnowpackAndrea Tupy · Mar 8, 2021 · Sawatch
Weather
The day was overcast and warm until about 2pm when the snow increased to about 30 minutes of S1. Snow let up around 3:30 but the day remained overcast with light westerly winds.
Snowpack
We dug two pits. The first was near tree line on a SSE aspect. The 2 cm melt-freeze crust on top was supportive to skis but not much else. It cracked around our skis but did not propagate. Underneath the crust were 57 cm of faceted snow with large depth hoar for the bottom 30 cm with chaining. The snowpack was dry and there was no persistent slab. The second pit was BTL and more easterly in a canopy clearing. The surface consisted of 3 cm of melt-freeze crust with runnels and the top 14 cm of the snowpack were moist over 62 cm of dry snow. We found ice columns 14 cm down that formed a 1 cm ice layer at 48. This layer was not contiguous. Below the ice layer were loose facets that were starting to build strength in isolated areas where water had percolated through to the ground. The breakable crust was supportive to skis, broke but did not propagate. Below 11,300' the snowpack started to become more sparse with areas of bare ground making it difficult to link turns (if the breakable crust wasn't terrifying). I did not dig on the NE aspect, but the snow was still dry BTL with no crust and supportive to skis above 11,000'.