Sangre de Cristo

Snowpack

Above treeline, most slopes have some degree of slab erosion from the recent winds. S to SE aspects are generally shallow consisting of soft, poorly to moderately developed facets/mixed forms with a supportable melt-freeze crust (~5 to 10cm thick) above. Small pockets of shallow windslab lurking with minor cracking where it wasn't stripped by the wind. We skied SE slopes and avoided the obvious windslab pockets without signs of instability. On a NE aspect on Broken Hand Peak, we dug into an area that appeared to be loaded by the recent wind event. Snowdepth was 3 meters and we found what appears to be the most recent windslab on an older interface reactive in stability tests. ECTP 18, Q1 and CT 12, Q1, about 50 cm down (see photo). We avoided similar zones on northerly aspects. No recent avalanche activity in the area.