Sawatch

Snowpack

Jason Konigsberg · Jan 14, 2022 · Sawatch

View on map

Weather

Snow and northwest strong winds. It was snowing up to an inch an hour. I was out from about 11 AM to 4 PM and my skin track was barely visible on the way down in open, wind-prone meadows. Best guess is 3 to 4 inches of new snow. Much less snow traveling east towards Leadville.

Snowpack

I was surprised to find a 140 to 150 cm deep snowpack on northerly near treeline slopes. Looking through Snotel data, the closest Ivanhoe site has similar accumulated season SWE to Porphyry on Monarch which also has a deeper snowpack. The Ivanhoe Snotel received 3.5" of SWE during the end of year storm.--- It wasn't surprising to get results of ECTX with the thick slab on top of weak layers near the ground. The faceted layer about 30 cm from the ground is still very soft. This was on a north facing slope. No cracking or collapsing was observed.---Strong winds were drifting snow onto east and southeast facing slopes near and above treeline.