Sawatch

Avalanche

John Mackinnon ยท Jan 25, 2017

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Weather

Overcast skies with patches of sun and periods of light snowfall. Westerly winds were light below TL and moderate near TL. We observed light blowing snow at ridge-tops. Temps were frigid!

Snowpack

HS averaged over a meter on west aspects below TL. We found 30 cm of storm snow since 1/19 resting on the persistent weak layers that formed last week. The PWLs in Buckeye Gulch looked like a mix of decomposing surface hoar and a few cms of facets. This pasts week's storm snow was mostly F hard but trended to 4F near the 1/19 interface. Storm snow proved unreactive in CTs and handshears at several locations on west aspects below TL largely due a lack of cohesion. Recent storm snow became progressively stiffer as we moved up in elevation and we did observe some cracking in the upper snowpack at TL. When the sun came out, we were able to see lots of wind affected snow and large cornices on the the easterly aspects near and above TL in the Buckeye Basin.

Avalanche

We did not observe any avalanches but the visibility was limited for most of the day.