Sangre de Cristo
AvalancheRich Rogers · Feb 28, 2024 · Sangre de Cristo
Weather
Quite a beautiful day. Cold and sunny start, warmed up quick mid-late morning, winds were calm to start then gradually increase enough to start moving cold surface snow throughout the afternoon upon moderate gusts, stayed sunny the entire day.
Snowpack
Only experienced cracking and rumbling collapsing below treeline. Interesting note on collapsing was, it would happen as I walked away from areas I just dug a pit in. One other time, I stuck the tail of my ski through the weak layer took another step trying, but failing, to initiate collapse; but only as I stepped a few feet away from this spot I was able to initiate a rumbling collapse. This lead be believe the snowpack here is stubborn over some slopes and SLIGHTLY more reactive on others. Snowpack tests at 9,800-10,300ft, reenforcing my thoughts, failed suddenly in compression and propagated with easy to medium loading steps under a 1F hard slab over, softer, 4F- basal facets. Near surface crusts were tough to keep intact while digging. Seemed to break a few centimeters to half way across a small column under the pressure of the sharp end of a shovel blade. Snowpack tests near treeline would still fail suddenly on basal facets upon moderate loading steps and propagate in the more stubborn end of moderate loading steps. Shallower weak layers(buried crusts and feb. 2 facet layer) would fail but not propagate.
Avalanche
The debris, caught my eye, from an old avalanche, on an unsupported, North facing, NTL slope. Seemed to have run sometime since my last visit on 2/21. With recent storms occurring on 2/22 and 2/26-27th.