Sawatch
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Apr 2, 2021 · Sawatch
Weather
Sunny, clear and warm. A few clouds in the afternoon. Winds were calm below and near treeline but it was a bit breezy above treeline.
Snowpack
Solid freeze last night with multiple hours of below freezing temperatures and clear skies. I started at 11 AM and open areas below treeline were still firm and supportable. On the exit at 4 PM the surface crust had melted and I would fall through the snowpack on my skis. Surprisingly no collapsing at all. The basal facets are wet and I think they were wet previously in this shallow snowpack. Water is now draining through the snowpack and to the ground. Due north aspects below treeline are still cold and dry. Northeast is in between and closer to a dry snowpack with moist surfaces.---Near treeline southerly slopes are shallow and have mostly wetted through. The average snow depth was only about 60 to 75 cm. I found a completely dry snowpack on an east-facing near treeline slope, except for 2 inches of wet surface snow. The height of snow on this slope was 115 cm and the weak layer of concern (2 mm facets) sits 70 cm below the surface. Although this snowpack is dry, if water starts moving quickly towards this weak layer, it would be concerning as this snowpack has not seen a big previous warm-up.---Above treeline it was cool and windy. An inch or two of surface snow was moist on southerlies above a hard crust. I could not get any rollerballs going in the heat of the day. In fact, no new rollerballing was observed anywhere. Northerly near and above treeline is totally dry and mostly hard windpack except for a few thin surface crust on northeast.---Overall no Loose Wet issues were observed today. The main concern for today was steep below treeline east and southerly slopes where the snowpack was unsupportable. Another concern was cornice fall although the cornices are much smaller this spring than normal. A few old cornice fall avalanches were observed from a few days ago.