Sawatch
SnowpackBo Torrey · Dec 11, 2020 · Sawatch
Weather
Mostly light snow with the occasional intense pulse. Strong ridgetop winds. A few brief moments of blue sky and sun breaking through the clouds but overall cloudy and limited visibility.
Snowpack
6" to 10" inches of new snow around Monarch Pass that fell right side up. Trail breaking was difficult given the unsupportive snowpack beneath the new snow. On slopes out of the wind the snow had not consolidated to form a slab and we didn't experience and cracking or collapsing. In theses sheltered areas we were not able to get any propagation in our extended column tests, the block just crumbled during loading steps all the way down. As soon as we exited the protection of the trees and entered wind exposed areas the snowpack quickly changed. Now the surface snow was firmer and clearly cohesive. Shooting cracks were breaking 10-15 ft in front of our skis. As we walked along the ridge it was easy to trigger small wind drifted slopes with the small cornices that had formed. Other than a few pockets on steeper portions of the slope the avalanche did not run far.