Sawatch

Avalanche

Kreston Rohrig · Dec 21, 2024 · Sawatch

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Weather

Clear and cold, with a few high clouds to start the day. The winds were calm and temperatures rose slightly as the sun moved higher in the sky.

Snowpack

I dug on a northeast-facing slope at 11875' along the side of a wind-drifted gully. I found a mixed bag of hard slabs capping super-weak 2-3 mm-deep hoar at the ground. I was able to get propagation in ECTs, but question the efficacy of the test. The slabs were 1 finger to pencil hard, and boot/ski pen was close to zero. Right next to a drifted in gully, the snowpack would be completely faceted or have a very thin wind skin. Only a few isolated features seemed to have the right lingering construct to possibly trigger an avalanche.

Avalanche

There were a couple of old Wind Slab avalanches from a previous loading event earlier in the week.