Sawatch
SnowpackJeremiah Primmer · Mar 17, 2022 · Sawatch
Weather
Snowed S-1 to S-2 all afternoon, clouds were starting to break as I drove down at 3:00PM. HST was 6" in most locations. Light loading on westerlies from upslope winds.
Snowpack
Heading up from Monarch Pass parking to the top of Monarch Crest, I found 4-6” of new snow. It was bonding well to the old snow and could only find soft slabs near ridgelines. Westerlies were loading with upslope winds, but cracking was limited just underfoot and just ridgetops. On a southeast-facing slope, I found a 220cm snowpack with two stout pencil hard melt-freeze crusts sitting on four-finger hard 0.5 mm facets in the top 3’ of the snowpack, but I did not get any propagating results. On a north-facing slope, I found a snowpack over 300cm, and the buried facets from the long mid-winter dry spell were showing signs of rounding. I did not see any recent activity or any obvious signs of instability.