Sawatch

Snowpack

Ian Hoyer ยท Mar 18, 2016

View on map

Weather

Cloudy in the morning, with skies clearing around noon. Gusty winds out of the west, blowing snow off trees. Felt hot in the sun.

Snowpack

New snow has settled to 3-8". Sunnier slopes had closer to 3", shadier and higher slopes closer to 8". The new snow was very dense and cohesive on all aspects. The new snow was well bonded to the underlying crust everywhere I looked. I could find small facets at the interface in most places, E-NE, but it seemed to be well glued on regardless. Deepest drift I found was 18" near treeline on an east aspect, bonding appeared good in wind loaded areas as well. Found percolation column to ground on a number of E & SE aspects BTL. I also found a patch of totally unsupportable, high faceted and un-crusted, snow on a N aspect BTL. There are still places where the lower snowpack is very weak.