Sawatch
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Nov 4, 2024 · Sawatch
Weather
New snow was measured at 10 inches in the parking lot and 14 inches at 12,000 feet. No wind today or last night when the snow fell.
Snowpack
On northerly slopes at 12,000 feet the snowpack is 55 cm deep. 35 cm of new fist-hard new snow rests on 15 cm of 1 mm faceted crystals. I got small collapses and shooting cracks on the basal layer. The snowpack is still very soft (fist hard snow on fist hard snow) but as the upper snowpack becomes more cohesive (either with settling or wind drifting), we will see avalanches on the basal layer. Below 12,000 feet the snowpack becomes shallower mainly due to less old snow and a little less new snow. The main concern is above treeline where there was the most old snow before the last storm. On an east-facing slope, also at 12,000 ft, snow near the ground was moist, but the old snow surface (the late-October storm) was faceted. There wasn't enough of a slab to get propagating results, but I could see east also being a problem when slabs build on top of this faceted layer.