Sawatch
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Dec 13, 2020 · Sawatch
Weather
Wind loading was light in the morning. The winds increased in the afternoon and wind loading was intense, particularly on to easterly slopes at near-treeline elevations. I assume there was just more snow in westerly near-treeline fetches. There were some snow plumes ATL but it didn't look as intense as lower down.---HST from last few days has settled to 25 cm on west aspects and 35 cm on east aspects.
Snowpack
Numerous collapses and shooting cracks on both west and east-facing slopes. We avoided slopes over 30 degrees.---The slab of snow from the recent storm ranges from 25 to 35 cm with an increasing hardness with depth, from fist to four-finger hard. This storm snow sits on an incredibly weak layer of buried near surface facets. this layer is 12 to 18 cm thick. This weak layer sits on a thin, somewhat fragile crust. Below this curst is another thick layer of well-developed facets and early-stage depth hoar. Extended column test showed crack propagation through the weak layer in the column on less than ten taps. On one west-facing sheltered slope, a Propagation Saw Test produced Slab Fracture results.