Sawatch

Avalanche

Jason Konigsberg, Ethan Greene · Dec 11, 2020 · Sawatch

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Weather

It's snowed off and on today with storm totals of 2 inches in the parking lot and about 4 inches up high. Winds were drifting snow.

Snowpack

Slopes sheltered from the wind had 2 to 4 inches of fist-hard new snow that did not show any slab-like characteristics. This was true on all below-treeline terrain we traveled and sheltered areas higher up. Once we got near a ridgetop, whether above or near treeline, the new snow was more cohesive and we observed small shooting cracks around our skis. For the most part, the loading was only about 20 or so feet downslope from the ridge.---We avoided one north-facing slope above treeline that showed evidence of significant cross-loading with thicker slabs.---We dug on an east-facing near-treeline wind-loaded slopes and got inconsistent but propagating results in an Extended Column Test at 25 cm from the surface on near-surface facets. The basal depth hoar layer was unreactive in our tests.

Avalanche

One small natural avalanche was observed that propagated widely but was only a few inches deep.