Sawatch
AvalancheSean Smollen · Dec 27, 2022 · Sawatch
Weather
Variable winds, mostly moderate from the NW, light to moderate loading. Even early season facets have been blown off most upper elevation north-westerly's! ATL, temps remained below freezing throughout tour. No active precipitation.
Snowpack
Most East-South slopes ATL hold 40-100cm of snow, where it hasn't blown away or avalanched. Wild sawatch winds over the last week have created some pretty interesting deep (well over 1 meter), isolated deposits of snow. A quick profile at an old crown (57cm HS) on a due East aspect showed a Knife hard layer of wind packed rounds almost 30cm thick, resting on-top of cohesion less facets down to the ground. South-Easterly slopes held a melt freeze-facet sandwich above early season snow, with recently drifted soft snow resting on top. Shooting cracks and collapsing were widespread on low angle terrain.
Avalanche
1 Avalanche triggered remotely while touring ridge top. I stepped onto the SE side of the ridge in shallow rocky terrain, crack shot vertically (fall line) then propagated E-W across a large chunk of the bowl. As I couldn't see any of the debris from ridge top, I did go back to perform a beacon check from the stauch to the toe of the debris.