Sangre de Cristo
SnowpackIan Hoyer · Mar 4, 2017 · Sangre de Cristo
Weather
Strong west winds near treeline. Very warm temperatures all day, mid 40s at the truck at 4 pm. Beautiful bluebird day.
Snowpack
Shallowest and weakest snowpack I've seen all season. Snow depths generally ranged from 50-75 cm near treeline. 30-50 cm of facets at the ground (including large striated depth hoar), capped by a couple melt-freeze crusts and faceting new snow. This general structure seemed consistent across all aspects near treeline. Crusts gave the pack enough stiffness to propagate a fracture on the depth hoar in an ECT, ECTP12. There were also substantial areas of bare ground exposed by the strong scouring winds. Snowpack generally not supportable on foot, and barely supportable on a snowmobile. Snow depth and coverage dropped off dramatically below ~10,500.