Sawatch
SnowpackScott Toepfer ยท Mar 19, 2014
Weather
Snow was still coming down at about S2 on the drive out of Breckenridge and around to Fremont Pass before sunrise. If there was new snow on Mt Elbert, it had blown off before we arrived for our skin-up. However, winds were surprisingly light the entire ascent, but by 4 pm we could see some blowing snow on ridges and down to treeline from the trailhead parking lot. Clouds began to lift out around 8:30 AM and it gradually developed into a Bluebird day by 4 pm, without a cloud in the sky. The lite north winds kept temperatures cold in the shade, even below treeline, but it was quite nice on sheltered sunny southern aspects.
Snowpack
East ridge of Mt Elbert was wind ravaged and scoured. Sastrugi was the norm South aspects were fairly polished with a thin pinkish red dust layer that looked fresh. We could sometimes see the dust on the east ridge ascent too. The south aspect above treeline descent into Box Creek was fairly 'wind polished' with the dust and a thin layer of "newer" snow comprising the snow surface. Under this dust layer was a thin, hard, polished wind crust, around an inch thick. It was at times hard to set an edge on the hard wind polish. The snowpack was quite hard below this wind crust and difficult to ram a ski pole through. This surface snow/dust could easily become a persistent weak layer in the future. We could at times find some very minor cracking in a very small wind slab, south aspect, on facets just along the NE ridge of Box Creek, maybe two inches thick, would not slide anywhere. There are some very large cornices visible around the range.