Sawatch

Avalanche

John Mackinnon ยท Feb 23, 2014

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Weather

BKN skies clearing to SCT in the afternoon. A trace of snow around noon. Moderate westerly winds and some light blowing snow observed below treeline. Cool temperatures in the am, but things began warming up as the skies cleared and the sun came out.

Snowpack

Tour in the Cal Gulch Area: SW-W aspects up to 11,500 ft. Observed lots of recent wind affected snow in exposed areas below treeline. SW slopes at 11,400 ft had an average HS just under a meter with a melt freeze crust at about 50 cm. The bottom 30+ cm remains weak and faceted. We got repeated compression test results that "dropped" on a very weak DH layer at 25 cm--CTM (SC) x 6. Interestingly, last week we got repeated "pops" in compression tests on small facets just above the melt freeze crust. Today, those facets were rounding and we got no test results at this interface. Skied slopes up to 27* with no signs of instabilities. Ski quality was OK with a mix of chalky wind affected powder and various crusts in exposed steeper and sunny areas.

Avalanche

We did not observe any recent avalanches.