Sawatch
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · May 16, 2023 · Sawatch
Weather
Partly cloudy with steady light winds above treeline. Temperatures are warm but nothing out of the ordinary for May.
Snowpack
The snowpack was supportable to skis with minimal ski penetration at all elevations in the morning. The only exception was heavily treed areas where the ski pen. was much deeper. The surface crust was about 10 cm thick on a north aspect, below treeline, and one-finger hard. Below this was a mostly moist snowpack, 1 meter deep, to the ground. There was a harder (knife-hard) ice lens 25 cm from the surface. This was also found near treeline and it was the harder of the two crusts. Overall the snowpack seems to be draining meltwater from the recent snow. There are places where this meltwater is pooling, such as the knife-hard crust mentioned above, but the water is eventually making its way through and there are no indications that this water pooling will lead to a wet slab issue. Also below treeline, the snowpack is mostly melted in the Fremont Pass area except for northerly slopes.---Near treeline the top foot of snow is mushy but there was no rollerballing even on steep slopes around noon. The snow crystals are already loose, polycrystals, and are no longer precip particles.---Above treeline, the snowpack becomes more supportive. There is dry, pencil-hard, wind-packed snow, beneath surface melt-freeze crusts, and transitioning storm snow, about a foot from the surface at 13k feet. This drier snow does not seem like it is on its way to becoming wet and is not concerning.---On my exit, conditions were still supportive, except below treeline where my skis would sink into the snowpack near any vegetation. Although the snowpack below treeline was becoming less supportive by noon, I did not observe any cracking or collapsing, most likely because the snowpack is draining well.---Overall the most concerning type of terrain would be very steep, sun-exposed, rocky terrain. The snowpack in rocky areas has not recovered to the extent that larger areas open to the sky have.
Avalanche
Numerous small avalanches most likely from last weekend as the storm snow warmed.