Sawatch
SnowpackEvan Ross ยท Mar 22, 2016
Weather
Mostly cloudy sky, warm temps, steady strong to extreme winds above 12,000ft and gusty moderate to strong winds at lower elevations.
Snowpack
Wind effected snow surfaces everywhere but protected BTL slopes. Ski pen on open slopes at 5cm or less with boot pen nearly the same. Firm snow surfaces mostly capped a structureless snowpack below. On previously wind loaded slopes, the snowpack started to increased over 100cm in depth and a stronger mid pack over some weaker snow below could be felt via probe. Simply avoided these slopes on ascent so no much for quality observations on them. Didn't dig into and look closely at the snowpack, and no obvious signs to instability were ever observed. Above treeline in this area, east and northeast slopes looked about the only area you could find some level of concerning persistent slab structure. Snow coverage on north facing slopes was mostly confined to gully features, was very wind pressed and where there was some structure in the snowpack it wasn't very continues across the slope. While westerly facing slopes were mostly bare ground. Very dry looking conditions in the Sawatch, just another mile or two west, nearing the bordering Aspen zone, the snow pack looked much more continues with much better coverage.