Sangre de Cristo
AvalancheJason Konigsberg · Dec 3, 2019 · Sangre de Cristo
Weather
Windy, warm and mostly clear. I didn't get up the main ridgeline but I would suspect sustained southwesterly winds of at least 20 mph. No snow was being transported.
Snowpack
Thin and wind hammered best describes the east side of the Sangre de Cristo Range right now. It's so wind ravaged, I drove back home to Leadville and the often wind-affected Sawatch looked like a winter paradise. With that being said, there are still places you can get yourself into trouble in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Although alpine faces are mostly down to rock, there are still cross-loaded gullies with hard slabs of wind-drifted snow. Also, east-facing bowls close to the main ridge looked reasonably white and are likely holding stiff slabs of drifted snow over depth hoar.---I traveled below treeline and found a very thin snowpack. Average snow depth was about 12 inches with wind-loaded pockets closer to two feet. I did not experience collapsing or cracking even though I found depth hoar below treeline on shady slopes.---The thin snowpack is down to relatively low elevations and is likely to continue facet. The northern Sangre de Cristo range from Hayden Pass north to Methodist Mountain looked like it was holding more snow than the mountains west and south of Westcliffe.
Avalanche
The light wasn't the best in the morning with clouds hanging around the peaks but I didn't see any obvious avalanches. Looking through some photos later, it is possible there may have been 1- D1.5 avalanche on an easterly-facing slope.