Sawatch

Avalanche

John Mackinnon ยท Feb 15, 2014

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Weather

Overcast skies trending towards obscured. Light and scattered snow (up to S1) that increased as the afternoon progressed. Winds were light and westerly; we observed some isolated areas of light blowing snow in exposed areas below treeline. Airtemp of +1C at 1400.

Snowpack

Average HS of 120 cm on north facing slopes below treeline. Lots of evidence of previous wind transport in exposed areas. Observed drifts, pillows and small cornices in gully features and tailings piles. Group dug profiles on a NNE aspect below treeline in a lightly gladed area. (See attached profile.) Bottom 45 cm of the snowpack remains weak and faceted. We observed depth hoar up to 5.0 mm. We also noticed a buried surface layer (20140127 SH layer?) that was beginning to round in the middle of the snowpack. We got repeatable sudden drops in compression tests in the depth hoar layer, but no results on the surface hoar---CTH (SC) x2 at 25 cm above the ground. Upper 60 cm of the snowpack is storm snow from Jan 27th onwards. CTs showed resistant fractures in the upper snowpack. Observed about 5 cm of new snow in past 24 hours.

Avalanche

We did not observe any avalanches.