Sawatch
AvalancheEthan Greene Jeff Davis · Feb 10, 2025 · Sawatch
Weather
Light snowfall on and off throughout the day. Westerly winds strong in the alpine and near treeline but not making it down in the valley's. Temperatures felt mild, low 20's, but chilly in the wind.
Snowpack
The new snow fell on a crust at lower elevations and hard drifted snow on exposed slopes. The recent snow did not create much of a new snow avalanche problem but would think one could still trigger small avalanches in drifted areas on steep high alpine slopes. Digging on a northeast slope around 12050' under the new snow a 1 finger hard slab sits over cold faceted snow. Snowpack tests highlighted instabilities in the December drought layer with an Extended Column test failure at 16 taps and a Compression test failure at 19 taps. Both around 60 cm from the surface. Moderate test failures highlight the lingering persistent weak-layers that still have the potential to propagate. A pencil hard slab make up the lower half of the snowpack that trends from pencil to 1-finger minus. This lower slab is made of facets and the grain size grew closer to the ground and in correlation to the hand-hardness.
Avalanche
No avalanche activity observed